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53 


The  Book-Lover's  Library. 

Edited  by 
Henry  B.  Wheatley,  F.S.A. 


THE    STORY 


OF 


SOME    FAMOUS   ROOKS 


BY 

FREDERICK   SAUNDERS, 

Author  oj "  Salad  for  the  Solitary  and  the  Social," 

"Evenings  with  the  Sacred  Poets"  "Pastime 

Papers,"  etc. 


NEW    YORK.: 

A.    C.    ARMSTRONG    AND    SON, 

714,    BROADWAY. 

1887. 


COPYRIGHT.    1887, 
BY   A.    C.   ARMSTRONG   AND  SON. 


PREFACE. 

a  secret  history  of  books 
could  be  written"  said 
Thackeray,  "and  the  author's 
private  tJwughts  and  meanings  noted 
down  alongside  of  his  story,  how  many 
insipid  volumes  would  become  interest- 
ing, and  dull  tales  excite  the  reader  !  " 
It  was  this  suggestive  remark  of  the 
great  novelist  that  prompted  the  pre- 
sent attempt  to  group  togetJier  t/ie 
following  notes  and  incidents  illustra- 
tive of  this  subject.  Tliese  notes  have 
been  garnered  from  a  somewhat  de- 
sultory though  extended  course  of  read- 
ing and  research ;  yet  tJiey  are  far 
from  being  exhaustive  of  the  subject. 
Tliey  are  necessarily  brief,  but  should 


vi  Preface. 

they,  in  any  instance,  be  regarded  as 
insufficient,  the  remark  attributed  to 
an  eminent  French  writer  may  possibly 
be  urged  as  apologetic  :  he  said,  "  The 
multiplicity  of  facts  and  writings  has 
become  so  great,  that  everything  soon 
will  have  to  be  reduced  to  extracts" 
It  has  been  also  iirged  that  "so  great 
is  the  mass  of  our  book-heritage,  that 
it  is  absolutely  impossible  for  anyone 
to  make  himself  acquainted  with  even 
the  hundredth  part  of  it  :  so  that  our 
choice  lies  for  the  most  part  between 
ignorance  of  much  that  we  would  like 
to  know,  and  that  kind  of  acquaintance 
which  is  to  be  acquired  only  by  de- 
sultory reading?  And  since  it  has 
been  affirmed  that  "  he  is  the  best 
author  who  gives  the  reader  the  most 
knowledge  and  takes  from  him  the 
least  time"  these  claims  have  not 
been  ignored,  it  is  believed,  in  the 


Preface.  vii 

preparation  of  the  following  pages. 
Everett  Jias  remarked  that  "  many  of 
tJie  best  books  have  been  written  by 
persons  wlw  at  tlie  time  of  writing 
them  Jiad  no  intention  of  becoming 
aut/iors" — as  in  tJie  instance  of  Pope's 
"  Rape  of  the  Lock "  and  Rogers 's 
"  Pleasures  of  Memory"  Locke,  when 
lie  began  his  work  on  the  "Human 
Understanding"  thought  it  would  not 
exceed  a  few  sJieets.  Often  the  con- 
sciousness of  talents  and  abilities  for 
such  work  seems  to  Jiave  been  concealed 
from  their  possessors  until  some  inci- 
dent has  proved  the  occasion  of  their 
development.  Besides  this,  tJicre  is  a 
joy  in  writing  which  none  but  writers 
know — "  a  pleasure  in  poetic  pains  ;  " 
and  in  this  consists  tJieir  genius. 
Montaigne  evidently  wrote  from  such 
an  impulse,  since  his  writings  are  not 
only  in  tlie  manner  but  in  tJie  spirit 


viii  Preface. 

of  a  monologue.  Many  other  writers 
'might  be  added  to  the  category \ — Lamb, 
Hazlitt,  Leigh  Hunt,  De  Quincey,  and 
others.  In  many  instances  the  birth 
of  a  book  may  be  traceable  to  some  ex- 
citing incident,  like  many  of  our  dis- 
coveries in  art  and  science.  Again,  it 
seems  as  if  an  inspiration  came  to  the 
mind, — 

"  Great  thoughts,  great  feelings  came  to  them. 
Like  instincts,  unawares  !" 

Carlyle  pays  a  generous  but  just 
tribute  to  literary  toilers — himself 
foremost  of  the  noble  order — in  the  fol- 
lowing energetic  sentences  : — "Among 
these  men  are  to  be  found  the  brightest 
specimens  and  the  chief  benefactors  of 
mankind.  It  is  they  who  keep  awake 
tJu  finer  parts  of  our  souls,  that  give 
better  aims  than  power  or  pleasure, 
and  withstand  the  total  sovereignty  of 
mammon  on  this  earth.  TJiey  are 


Preface.  ix 

the  vanguard  in  tJie  march  of  mind, 
the  intellectual  backwoodsmen,  re- 
claiming from  the  idle  wilderness  new 
territories  for  thought  and  activity. 
Pity,  that  from  all  their  conquests,  so 
rich  in  benefit  to  others,  themselves 
should  reap  so  little.  Of  all  tJie  things 
which  man  can  do  or  make  Jiere  below, 
by  far  the  most  momentous,  wonderful, 
and  worthy,  are  the  things  we  call 
books''  Emerson  has  justly  remarked 
that  "  tJiey  prize  books  most  who  are 
themselves  wise',' — since  they  know  by 
experience,  that  books  not  only  minister 
to  our  purest  intellectual  enjoyment, 
but  they  also  invigorate,  ennoble,  and 
enrich  the  mind,  as  well  as  beguile  us 
of  tJie  rough  and  rugged  paths  of  life. 
TJieirs  is  the  talismanic  spell  to 


'  Lift  us  unawares 
Out  of  our  meaner  cares. " 


F.  S. 


CONCERNING  THE  HONOUR  OF  BOOKS. 

SINCE  honour  from  the  honourer  proceeds, 

How  well  do  they  deserve,  that  memorize 

And  leave  in  books  for  all  posterities 

The  names  of  worthies  and  their  virtuous  deeds ; 

When  all  their  glory  else,  like  water-weeds 

Without  their  element,  presently  dies, 

And  all  their  greatness  quite  forgotten  lies, 

And  when  and  how  they  flourished  no  man  heeds. 

How  poor  remembrances  are  statues,  tombs, 

And  other  monuments  that  men  erect 

To  princes,  which  remain  in  closed  rooms 

Where  but  a  few  behold  them,  in  respect 

Of  Books,  that  to  the  universal  eye 

Show  how  they  lived,  the  other  where  they  lie. 

JOHN  FLORID  (1545—1625). 


CONTENTS. 


PACK 

I.  INTRODUCTORY.  —  CHAUCER.  —  SPEN- 
SER.—SIDNEY'S  "ARCADIA"  .  .  i 
II.  MORE'S  "  UTOPIA." — Fox's  "  BOOK 
OF  MARTYRS.'' — ROGER  ASCHAM. — 
MONTAIGNE. — BROWNE'S  "  RELIGIO 
MEDICI."— PEPYS'S  AND  EVELYN'S 
"DIARIES" 32 

III.  FELTHAM'S     "  RESOLVES."  —  "  EM- 

BLEMS." —  BALLADS.  —  ."  ROBIN 
HOOD."  —  "  KING  ARTHUR."  — 
SHAKESPEARE. — HOBBES  OF  MALMES- 
BURY. — ST.  PIERRE. — "BARON  MUNC- 
HAUSEN."  —  BUNYAN'S  "  PILGRIM'S 
PROGRESS."  —  DRYDEN.  —  POPE.  — 
" ROBINSON  CRUSOE." — "GULLIVER'S 
TRAVELS." — WALTON'S  "ANGLER." 
— WHITE'S  "SELBORNE"  .  .  48 

IV.  MILTON.   -  -   YOUNG'S          "  NIGHT 

THOUGHTS."  —  DR.  JOHNSON.  — 
GRAY.— CAMPBELL  .  .  .  .78 


xii  Contents. 

PAGE 

V.  GOLDSMITH.  —  COWPER.  —  BURNS.  — 
STERNE. — RICHARDSON. — FIELDING. 
—  SMOLLETT.  —  BECKFORD'S  "  VA- 
THEK." — WORDSWORTH.  —  SCOTT. — 
COLERIDGE. — AUDUBON. — WILSON  .  102 

VI.  ROGERS. — BUTLER'S    "  HUDIBRAS." — 

SOUTHEY.  —  CRABBE.  —  FRANKLIN'S 
"  AUTOBIOGRAPHY."  —  CHARLES 
LAMB.  —  BYRON.  —  MOORE.  —  CAR- 
LYLE. — POE. — DANA. — PRESCOTT. — 
HOOD 145 

VII.  MRS.  BROWNING. — WASHINGTON  IR- 

VING. —  HAWTHORNE.  —  LONGFEL- 
LOW. —  HOLMES.  —  WHITTIER.  — 

TENNYSON 176 

INDEX  .  202 


THE   STORY 

OF 

SOME    FAMOUS    BOOKS. 


I. 

INTRODUCTORY.  —  CHAUCER.  —  SPENSER. 
—  SIDNEY'S  "  ARCADIA." 

jS  introductory  to  an  essay  on  the 
origin  of  books,  it  may  not  be 
deemed  irrelevant  to  allude  for 

a  moment  to  the  origin  of  authors.    Horace 

Smith  insists  that 

"  Were  there  no  readers  there  certainly  would 
be  no  writers  ;  clearly,  therefore,  the  existence  of 
writers  depends  upon  the  existence  of  readers  ;  and, 
of  course,  since  the  cause  must  be  antecedent  to 
the  effect,  readers  existed  before  writers.  Yet, 
on  the  other  hand,  if  there  were  no  writers  there 
could  be  no  readers  ;  so  it  would  appear  that 
writers  must  be  antecedent  to  readers." 


2    The  Story  of  Some  Famous  Books. 

Here  there  seems  to  be  no  sophistry, 
but  a  clear  logical  sequence  ;  and  yet  one 
is  hardly  ready  to  accept  the  conclusion 
of  the  argument.  I  think,  indeed,  there 
certainly  would  be  writers  even  if  there  were 
no  readers.  Before  leaving  authors  for 
books,  something  should  be  said  about  that 
strange  class  of  writers  who  have  for  ages 
been  accustomed  to  send  adrift  over  the 
world  their  literary  offspring,  and  leave 
them  in  a  condition  of  orphanage,  unpro- 
tected, and  exposed  to  all  the  casualties 
and  contingencies  of  time.  What  a  con- 
course of  literary  fugitives  are  ever  hover- 
ing about,  or  seen  nestled  in  some  "poet's 
corner  "  of  a  periodical,  or  found  fluttering 
out  their  brief  butterfly  existence  in  the 
columns  of  some  newspaper.  Some  of 
these  waifs  are  of  strange  and  surprising 
beauty,  and  merit  better  treatment  and 
conservation.  These  fugitives  and  strays 
of  the  pen  have  been  classed  under  a 
generic  name  or  patronymic,  and  as 
Douglas  Jerrold  has  admirably  written  all 
that  need  be  said  about  their  mysterious 
cognomen,  herewith  I  present  his  words 
on  the  subject : — 


Introductory.  3 

"  Of  Anon,  but  little  is  known,  although  his 
works  are  excessively  numerous  ;  for  this  mysteri- 
ous writer  seems  to  have  dabbled  in  almost  every 
variety  of  topic,  both  in  prose  and  verse  ;  from  the 
cloudy  heights  of  philosophy  down  to  the  common- 
place things  of  everyday  life.  Not  confined  to 
any  country  or  creed,  his  name  confronts  us  in 
books  and  periodicals,  English,  American,  French, 
and  German.  If  all  the  productions  of  this  pro- 
lific scribe  were  collected  together,  they  would, 
doubtless,  require  for  their  reception  something 
like  the  capacity  of  a  British  Museum.  He  must, 
also,  be  the  most  modest  of  authors,  to  have  done 
so  much  for  literature  and  the  world,  and  yet  so 
persistently  to  have  preserved  his  incognito.  The 
only  writer  who  may  in  the  least  compete  with 
him  in  fecundity  and  personal  mystery  is  his  con- 
temporary, Ibid" 

It  may  seem  trite  at  the  present  day 
to  apostrophise  books  when  they  are  in 
almost  every  person's  hands ;  but  all  books 
are  not  true  and  good  books,  or  such  as 
win  the  scholar's  choice. 

Books  are  no  longer  inscribed  on  illu- 
minated parchments,  and  kept  secluded 
in  the  cloistered  cell  of  monasteries,  as  in 
times  of  yore  ;  but  we  live  in  a  day  when, 
instead  of  having  laboriously  to  pore  over 
the  verbose  manuscripts  of  antique  lore,  we 
have  presented  to  us  the  golden  grain  of 


4    The  Story  of  Some  Famous  Books. 

knowledge  winnowed  from  the  chaff;  and 
this  immunity  is  offered  to  all.  Not  only 
in  the  chamber  of  the  scholar,  therefore, 
should  we  seek  for  the  fruits  of  study  and 
reading,  but  the  cottage  of  the  farmer  and 
artisan  should  also  bear  evidence  of  the 
beneficial  results  of  the  study  of  good 
books.  The  truest  blessing  of  literature 
is  found  in  the  inward  light  and  peace 
which  it  bestows.  It  has  been  justly  re- 
marked that 

"  Genius  has  its  nectaries  and  its  delicate  glands, 
and  secretions  of  sweetness,  and  upon  these  the 
thoughtful  reader  dilates.  A  good  book  resembles 
a  fruitful  orchard-tree,  carefully  tended ;  its  fruits 
are  perennial,  and  the  better  with  age." 

Said  Blanco  White,  the  author  of  one 
of  the  finest  sonnets  we  have  : — 

"  If  I  open  the  treasures  of  literature,  which 
nourished  my  mind  in  youth,  I  feel  young  again, 
and  my  mind  seems  to  be  transported  into  the 
regions  of  love  and  beauty,  which  I  can  now  better 
enjoy  than  during  the  fever  of  the  passions." 

The  books  we  love,  like  our  personal 
friends,  exert  an  influence  over  our  minds, 
and  we  cherish  the  memory  of  our  inter- 
course with  them  both,  with  pleasure  ever 


Introductory.  5 

afterwards.  To  many  a  student,  who 
prefers  quiet  retirement  to  the  noisy  ex- 
citement of  the  crowded  resorts  of  fashion- 
able life,  his  favourite  books  will  have  thus 
acquired  for  him  a  personality.  He  may 
not  be  without  his  personal  friendships,  yet 
he  will  doubtless  repeat  the  experience  of 
Bonnivard,  without  his  enforced  seclu- 
sion : — 

"  My  books  and  I  grew  friends, 
So  much  a  long  communion  tends 
To  make  us  what  we  are  ;  even  I 
Regained  my  freedom  with  a  sigh." 

Mr.  Lowell  wisely  urges  concentration 
and  definiteness  of  purpose, — the  choice 
not  merely  of  the  best,  but  of  some  one 
great  author,  the  reading  and  study  of 
whose  writings  will  quicken  attention, 
force  upon  us  the  necessity  of  thinking, 
and  open  up  many  suggestions  of  other 
reading,  associated  with  and  centring  in 
the  author  or  the  subject  of  investigation 
first  chosen. 

Books  are  often  spoken  of  as  com- 
panions. But  they  may  be  good  or  bad 
companions.  Mr.  Lowell  extends  the  old 
adage  that  a  man  is  known  by  the  com- 

i 


6    The  Story  of  Some  Famous  Books. 

pany  he  keeps,  and  affirms  that  he  is  also 
made  by  it.  Readers,  young  or  old,  may 
profitably  heed  what  he  says  in  this  con- 
nection : — 

' '  There  is  a  choice  in  books  as  in  friends,  and 
the  mind  sinks  or  rises  to  the  level  of  its  habitual 
society,  is  subdued,  as  Shakespeare  says  of  the 
dyer's  hand,  to  what  it  works  in.  Cato's  advice, 
'  Cum  bonis  ambula '  (Consort  with  the  good),  is 
quite  as  true  if  we  extend  it  to  books,  for  they, 
too,  insensibly  give  away  their  own  nature  to  the 
mind  that  converses  with  them.  They  either 
beckon  upward  or  drag  down." 

Tuckerman  has  well  said  : — 

"It  is  remarkable  that  the  men  whose  relish 
for  books  is  the  most  keen,  who  read  sympathe- 
tically, not  merely  to  store  the  memory  and  weave 
the  ties  of  familiar  and  endearing  association  with 
beloved  authors,  should  invariably  repudiate  the 
idea  of  an  extensive  library.  Thinkers  do  not 
require  books  for  the  information  they  convey  so 
much  as  stimulants  and  faithful  companions.  They 
can  generate  ideas  for  themselves,  and  take  up  a 
volume,  as  they  turn  to  a  friend,  for  the  refreshment 
of  sympathy  or  attrition  of  mind." 

Let  us  imagine  a  student  anxious  to  be 
instructed  in  all  that  has  been  done  and 
thought  in  preceding  times.  Whither 
shall  he  go?  If  he  betake  himself  to 


Introductory.  7 

nature,  he  finds  that  all  impress  written 
thereon  by  man  has  been  eaten  out  by 
the  corroding  tooth  of  time.  He  gropes 
laboriously  amid  physical  relics,  but  a 
vague  and  partial  glimpse  is  his  only 
reward.  He  visits  his  library,  however, 
and  presents  the  talisman  of  a  book,  and 
the  heralds  of  discovery  come  forth  to 
greet  him.  Galileo  holds  to  his  eye  the 
magical  mechanism  that  draws  within  its 
range  the  rings  of  Saturn  and  the  satellites 
of  Jupiter.  He  looks  again,  and  Torricelli 
makes  the  heavy  mercury  the  prophet  of 
the  storm.  Again,  and  the  needle,  quiver- 
ing to  an  influence  too  subtle  to  be  traced, 
points  unerringly  amidst  the  solitudes  of 
the  sea.  Harvey  tells  him  why  the  crimson 
mounts  into  the  cheek ;  Jenner  panoplies 
him  against  his  most"  direful  foe,  and 
Daguerre  commands  the  pencil  of  the 
sun.  He  turns  again,  and  Locke  teaches 
him  the  secrets  of  his  own  mind ;  Bacon 
instructs  him  in  the  true  mode  of  study ; 
Linnaeus  spreads  before  him  the  beauties 
of  leaf  and  flower ;  Lyell  clips  off  some 
crust  from  the  ancient  rock,  and  reads 
the  earth's  autobiography;  while  Newton 


8  The  Story  of  Some  Famous  Books. 

and  La  Place  bear  him  safely  along 
the  starry  pavement  of  the  Milky  Way. 
Deny  these  treasured  resources  to  the 
poet,  the  historian,  and  the  student,  and 
the  long-buried  ages  are  voiceless  and  un- 
instructive.  But  by  the  magic  of  books, 
the  son  of  science  is  rapt  by  a  problem, 
the  philosopher  by  an  abstruse  speculation, 
the  antiquary  is  carried  centuries  back  into 
the  chivalric  past,  and  the  lover  of  poesy 
is  borne  upon  glittering  wings  into  the 
regions  of  imagination  and  fancy. 

"Why  should  it  not  be  a  worthy  end, 
as  old  Sir  John  saith,  to  read  simply  for 
delight  ?  "  it  has  been  asked. 

"  God  dangles  peaches  before  our  eyes,  and 
spreads  flowers  beneath  our  feet,  and  fills  the 
earth  with  colours  and  forms  of  beauty  as  well  as 
the  air  with  sounds  »f  sweetest  melody ;  and  He 
no  more  means  us  to  discard  the  delightsome  from 
our  course  of  reading,  than  banish  strawberries 
from  our  tables,  or  flowers  from  our  writing- 
tables." 

How  wonderful  is  the  embalmed  essence 
of  volatile  thought  in  a  book !  Think  of  the 
Homeric  ballads.  Their  author's  earthly 
existence  ceased  three  thousand  years 
since  ;  his  body  reverted  to  dust ;  but  his 


Introductory.  g 

immortal  work  outlives  all  the  mutations 
of  Time. 
Said  Thomas  Hood  : — 

"  Experience  enables  me  to  depose  to  the  com- 
fort and  blessing  that  literature  can  prove  in 
seasons  of  sickness  and  sorrow ; — how  powerfully 
intellectual  pursuits  can  help  in  keeping  the  head 
from  crazing  and  the  heart  from  breaking. " 

And  Madame  de  Genlis  tells  us  that 
she  had  never  tasted  pleasures  so  true  as 
those  she  found  "  in  the  study  of  books, 
in  writing  or  in  music."  What  can  supply 
their  place  ? 

"  The  vision  and  the  faculty  Divine  " 
is  the  endowment  of  a  fickle  and  capri- 
cious goddess,  for  she  comes  not  re- 
sponsively  alike  to  all  her  devotees.  To 
some,  the  inspiration,  or  Divine  afflatus, 
lights  up  the  chambers  of  the  mind,  and, 
like  the  electric  current,  not  only  illumines 
but  energises  its  powers.  To  others,  the 
gift  has  to  be  sought  by  ingenious  and 
persevering  effort,  by  earnest  study,  and 
sudorous  brain-toil.  Some  win  the  re- 
wards of  fame  for  their  toil,  but  others, 
again,  fail  to  secure  the  applause  of  the 
world,  and  for  the  pleasure  they  have 


I  o  The  Story  of  Some  Famous  Books. 

given,  have,  but  too  often  in  return,  been 
denied  the  necessities  of  life.  Homer, 
for  instance,  was  the  first  poet  and  beggar 
of  note  among  the  ancients ;  and  in  later 
times,  Cervantes  died  of  hunger,  like 
Otway,  and  some  others. 

Southey  was  not  endowed  with  too 
much  money,  but  he  worked  on  nobly 
and  unselfishly  to  the  last, — until  his 
mind  gave  way;  finding  happiness  and 
joy  in  the  pursuit  of  letters ;  "  not  so 
learned  as  poor,  not  so  poor  as  proud, 
and  not  so  proud  as  happy ! "  These 
were  his  own  fine  words. 

Sir  Walter  Scott  was  another,  and  even 
more  illustrious,  instance  of  the  love 
of  letters  under  the  most  formidable 
of  difficulties.  The  sacrifices  and  efforts 
which  he  made  during  the  last  few  years 
of  his  eventful  life,  even  while  paralysed, 
and  scarcely  able  to  hold  his  pen,  exhibit 
him  in  a  truly  heroic  light.  When  his 
physician  remonstrated  with  him  against 
his  excessive  brain-work,  he  replied,  "  If  I 
were  to  be  idle,  I  should  go  mad !  " 

Johnson  was  a  poor  man,  but  a  very 
brave  one  :  his  head  was  full  of  learning, 


Introductory.  1 1 

but  his  pockets  were  often  empty.  His 
bluff  and  gruff  exterior  covered  a  kindly 
and  noble  nature.  How  many  more  such 
examples  exist  on  the  scroll  of  literary 
fame? 

"  Authors  are  beings  only  half  of  earth, — 

They  own  a  world  apart  from  other  men  : 
A  glorious  realm,  given  by  their  fancy  birth, 

Subjects,  a  sceptre,  and  a  diadem  : 
A  fairy  land  of  thought  in  which  sweet  bliss 

Would  run  to  ecstasy  in  wild  delight- — 
But  that  stern  Nature  drags  them  back  to  this 

With  call   imperious,   which  they  may  not 

slight  : 
And  then  they  traffic  with  their  thoughts,  to  live, 

And  coin  their  labouring  brains  for  daily  bread  : 
Getting  scant  dross,  for  the  rich  ore  they  give, — 

While  often  with  the  gift  their  life  is  shed  ! 
And  thus  they  die,  leaving  behind  a  name 

At  once  their  country's  glory  and  her  shame  !  " ' 

"  The  mental  powers  acquire  their  full  robust- 
ness when  the  cheek  loses  its  ruddy  hue,  and  the 
limbs  their  elastic  step,"  wrote  Dr.  Guthrie,  "and 
pale  thought  sits  on  manly  brows,  and  the  student's 
lamp  burns  far  into  the  silent  night.  The  finest 
flowers  of  genius  have  grown  in  an  atmosphere 
where  those  of  nature  are  prone  to  droop,  and 
difficult  to  bring  to  maturity." 

1  Fred.  West 


1 2  The  Story  of  Some  Famous  Books. 

Prince,  a  self-taught  poet  of  England, 
thus  portrays  a  literary  laboratory  : — 

"  Lo  !  in  that  quiet  and  contracted  room, 
Where  the  lone  lamp  just  mitigates  the  gloom, 
Sits  a  pale  student — stirred  with  high  desires, 
With  lofty  principles  and  gifted  fires  ; — 
From  time  to  time,  with  calm,  enquiring  looks, 
He  culls  the  ore  of  wisdom  from  his  books; — 
Clears  it,  sublimes  it,  till  it  flows  refined 
From  his  alembic  crucible  of  mind." 

Mind  lives  by  mind ;  thoughts  germi- 
nate their  kind.  We  see  this  alike  in  the 
reproductions  of  nature  and  in  the  inexor- 
able demands  of  the  physical  system  for 
its  appropriate  food. 

"Every  one  of  my  writings,"  Goethe  says, 
"  has  been  furnished  to  me  by  a  thousand  different 
persons,  a  thousand  different  things ;  the  learned 
and  the  ignorant,  the  wise  and  the  foolish, — with- 
out having  the  least  suspicion  of  it, — to  bring  me 
the  offering  of  their  thoughts,  their  faculties,  their 
experience.  Often  others  have  sowed  the  harvest 
I  have  reaped." 

Great  results  are  the  sure  rewards  of 
the  toil  of  study  and  persevering  mental 
industry.  Talents,  however  brilliant, 
cannot  supersede  reading  and  thinking  ; 
and  thinking  assimilates  what  we  read,  so 
that  it  becomes  our  own.  Aristotle  dis- 


Introductory.  1 3 

tinguished  the  learned  and  the  unlearned 
as  the  living  and  the  dead. 

"  The  authors  truly  remembered  and  loved  are 
men  in  the  best  sense  of  the  term  ; — the  human, 
the  individual  informs  and  stamps  their  books  with 
an  image,  or  an  affluence  not  born  of  will,  or  mere 
ingenuity,  but  emanating  from  the  soul ;— and  this 
is  the  quality  that  endears  and  perpetuates  their 
fame.  Hence  Goldsmith  is  beloved,  Milton 
reverenced,  and  the  grave  of  Burns  a  '  Mecca  of 
the  mind.'  There  are  books,  as  there  are  pictures, 
which  do  not  catch  the  thoughtless  eye,  and  yet 
are  the  gems  of  the  virtuoso,  the  oracles  of  the 
philosopher,  and  the  consolations  of  the  poet. 
We  love  authors,  as  we  love  individuals,  according 
to  our  affinities ;  and  the  extent  of  the  popular 
appreciation  is  no  more  a  standard  to  us,  than  the 
world's  estimate  of  our  friend,  whose  nature  we 
have  tested  by  faithful  companionship  and  sym- 
pathetic intercourse.  He  who  has  not  the  mental 
independence  to  be  loyal  to  his  own  intellectual 
benefactors,  is  as  much  a  heathen  as  one  who 
repudiates  his  natural  kin  ;  indeed,  an  honest  soul 
clings  more  tenaciously  to  neglected  merit  in 
authors,  as  in  men  ;  there  is  a  chivalry  of  taste 
as  of  manners.  Doubtless  Lamb's  test  for  the 
old  English  dramatists,  Addison's  admiration  of 
Milton's  poetry,  and  Carlyle's  devotion  to  Goethe, 
were  all  the  more  earnest  and  keen  because  they 
were  ignored  by  their  neighbours.  It  is  well  to 
obey  these  decided  idiosyncrasies."  ' 
1  Tuckerman. 


Among  the  numerous  instances  in 
which  the  world  is  indebted  to  seeming 
accident  for  the  development  of  latent 
genius,  the  following  might  be  cited,  as 
illustrative.  Malebranche,  once  loitering 
in  a  bookstore  in  Paris,  happened  to  see 
a  volume  entitled  L'Homme,  by  Descartes, 
which  work  he  took  home  and  read.  It 
is  to  this  incident  that  we  are  to  as- 
cribe those  compositions  in  metaphysics 
and  morals  that  have  placed  him  in  the 
front  rank  of  the  writers  of  his  age.  For 
another  illustration  in  point  we  might 
refer  to  Cowley,  who  in  his  early  days 
chanced  to  meet  with  a  copy  of  Spenser's 
Faerie  Queen,  with  the  beauties  of  which 
he  became  so  enchanted  that  forthwith 
he  became  himself  a  poet.  Who  will 
venture  to  affirm  that  we  are  not  indebted 
to  Shakespeare's  leaving  his  native  town 
for  London,  and  engaging  with  a  company 
of  actors  for  the  purpose  of  aiding  his 
father's  resources,  that  our  literature 
has  been  so  enriched  and  glorified  with 
his  matchless  creations  ? 

It  was  remarked  by  D'Israeli  that 
"had  several  of  our  first  writers  set  their  fortunes 


Introductory.  1 5 

on  the  cast  of  their  friends'  opinions,  we  might 
have  lost  some  precious  compositions." 

The  friends  of  Thomson  discovered 
nothing  but  faults  in  his  early  productions, 
one  of  which  happened  to  be  his  noblest, 
the  Winter.  He  had  created  a  new  school 
of  art,  and  appealed  from  his  circle  to  the 
public.  It  was  Gibbon  who  wrote  : — 

"  I  was  disgusted  with  the  modest  practice  of 
reading  the  manuscript  to  my  friends.  Of  such 
friends  some  will  praise  for  politeness  and  some 
will  criticise  for  vanity. " 

And  Montaigne  has  honestly  told  us 
that  in  his  own  province  they  considered 
that  for  him  to  attempt  to  become  an 
author  was  perfectly  ludicrous.  "While 
at  a  distance,"  he  says,  "  printers  purchase 
me,  at  home  I  am  compelled  to  pur- 
chase printers."  Much  more  might  be 
cited  of  a  similar  character,  to  show  the 
discouraging  influence  of  prejudice  and 
hypercriticism  at  the  commencement  of 
a  literary  career;  but  in  spite  of  all, 
genius  will  triumph  over  adverse  condi- 
tions, notwithstanding  all  the  depressing 
moods  and  tenses  which  accompany 
literary  composition. 


1 6  The  Story  of  Some  Famous  Books. 

"Poetry  is  its  own  exceeding  great  reward," 
said  Coleridge.  "  It  soothes  afflictions,  crowns 
poverty,  rocks  asleep  cares  and  sickness,  multi- 
plies and  refines  pleasures,  and  endears  solitude. 
We  think  of  Milton,  after  the  sight  of  his 
eyes  had  gone  from  him,  when  the  rays  of  early 
studies  shone  across  his  path  ;  when  the  voices  he 
loved  in  youth — solemn  notes  of  tragic,  or  livelier 
numbers  of  lyric  verse — stole  into  his  ear  out  of 
the  gloom ;  and  nightingales  sang  as  sweetly  in 
Cripplegate,  as  when  the  April  leaf  trembled 
in  his  father's  garden." 

We  remember  Camoens  in  all  his  trials, 
— whether  gazing  on  land  and  water  from 
that  rocky  chair  built  by  nature  for  him, 
and  still  called  by  his  name,  upon  an 
isthmus  of  the  China  seas;  shipwrecked, 
with  his  Lusiad  held  above  the  waves,  and 
drifting  upon  a  plank  to  shore  ;  in  Lisbon, 
waiting  in  solitude  and  darkness  the  re- 
turn of  a  black  servant,  who  helped  to 
feed  his  hunger  with  the  alms  he  begged ; 
or  closing  his  eyes,  a  sick  mendicant  and 
outcast,  in  a  public  hospital.  We  weep 
with  Tasso,  in  the  hospital  of  St.  Anna, 
scared  by  the  screams  of  maniacs  in  the 
neighbouring  cells,  yet  sometimes  turning 
his  thoughts  to  the  correction  of  the 
Eastern  Story,  and  peopling  the  loneliness 


Introductory.  1 7 

with  the  magnificent  tumult  of  a  crusade. 
What  upheld  the  buffeted  pilgrims  of 
Fame  in  their  struggle  and  poverty  ?  An 
animating  mastering  sense  of  music  lived 
in  their  hearts,  finding  utterance  in  tones 
more  lulling  than  the  south-west  wind  of 
the  "  Arcadia,"  which  in  the  ear  of  Sidney 
crept  "over  flowery  fields  and  shadowed 
waters  in  the  heat  of  summer."  Happy 
eyes  that  make  pictures  when  they  are 
shut  !  We  are  told  by  naturalists  that 
birds  of  Paradise  fly  best  against  the  wind ; 
and  so  the  many  of  the  votaries  of  the 
muse  "  learn  in  suffering  what  they  teach 
in  song." J 

Who,  looking  back  upon  their  glorious 
age,  does  not  respond  to  Whittier's  poetic 
words  ? — 

"  I  love  the  old  melodious  lays 

Which  softly  melt  the  ages  through, 
The  songs  of  Spenser's  golden  days, 

Arcadian  Sidney's  silver  phrase 
Sprinkling  our  noon  of  time  with  freshest  morn- 
ing dew." 

The  Elizabethan  age  boasted  a  wealth 
of  learning  unequalled  by  any  preced- 

1  Willmott. 


1 8  The  Story  of  Some  Famous  Books. 

ing  and  subsequent  epoch  in  the  his- 
tory of  letters.  Shakespeare,  surrounded 
as  he  was  by  heroes  and  mighty  men 
of  intellect,  formed  the  great  central  sun 
around  which  the  lesser  orbs  revolved.  It 
was  one  of  their  number  that  justly  re- 
marked, referring  to  the  magnates  in  theo- 
logy, as  well  as  the  great  poets  of  that 
time,  that  "good  men  were  the  stars  of 
the  world,  and  that  our  poets  were  also 
the  priesthood  interpreting  the  great  pro- 
blem of  human  life,  with  its  mysteries, 
passions,  and  destiny." 

The  great  era  of  the  discovery  of 
America,  and  the  important  events  which 
synchronized  with  it, — the  invention  of 
the  printing-press  and  the  revival  of  learn- 
ing,— present  the  natural  starting-point  in 
the  history  of  our  literature,  and  conse- 
quently the  production  of  books.  Till  then, 
scholarship  was,  for  the  most  part,  re- 
stricted to  the  cloister,  and  even  the  great 
writers  of  classic  times  were  well-nigh 
forgotten  amid  the  polemical  discussions 
of  the  monastic  schools.  Without  were 
barbarism,  storm  and  darkness,  and  the 
tumult  of  war  ;  within  were  yet  a  few 


Introductory.  1 9 

devoted  ones  to  tend  the  lamp  of  learning, 
and  "  amid  light,  fragrance,  and  music,  the 
ritual  of  genius  continued  to  be  solem- 
nized." Thus  the  sacred  fire  of  learning 
burst  forth  from  its  scattered  shrines, 
until  torch  after  torch  illumined  the  civi- 
lised world.  It  was  most  fitting  that 
the  "  art  preservative  of  arts "  should 
be  inaugurated  with  the  printing  of 
the  "Book  of  books,"  since  no  other 
book — apart  from  its  Divine  authority — 
has  furnished  such  innumerable  themes 
for  historians,  poets,  philosophers,  moral- 
ists, and  teachers  of  its  doctrines,  as  the 
Bible. 

Of  the  Mazarin  Bible  it  is  well  to  note 
that  its  discovery  was  almost  accidental. 
Debure,the  celebrated  bibliographer,  states 
that  mere  chance  led  him  to  discover 
this  literary  treasure, — the  firstfruits  of  the 
printing  art,  and  the  most  precious  of 
books.  He  says  : — 

"  When  making  some  explorations  in  the  library 
of  the  Cardinal,  we  were  not  a  little  surprised  to 
find  this  first  and  most  celebrated  work  of  the 
press,  which  a  simple  impulse  of  curiosity  caused 
us  to  open." 


2  o  The  Story  of  Some  Famo2is  Books. 

The  existence  of  such  a  work  was,  how- 
ever, suspected,  from  the  allusion  to  it  in 
the  Chronicle  of  Cologne,  which  speaks  of 
the  jubilee  year  1450,  when  the  first 
book,  a  Bible,  "of  the  larger  type,"  was 
discovered. 

In  these  rambling  researches  over  the 
wide  and  varied  domain  of  our  vernacular 
literature,  in  quest  of  some  brief  notices 
of  famous  books,  I  solicit  the  reader's 
indulgence,  at  the  outset,  on  account  of 
the  desultory  and  fragmentary  character 
of  my  notes  and  details. 

By  common  consent,  the  critics  assign 
the  post  of  honour  to  Geoffrey  Chaucer,  as 
father  of  the  English  muse ;  it  is  fitting, 
therefore,  that  he  should  claim  our  first 
attention,  especially  as  he  is  also  the 
pioneer  of  an  illustrious  succession  of 
British  bards  ;  or  as  Campbell,  in  his 
poetic  phrase,  apostrophises  him  : — 

"  Our  Helicon's  first  fountain  stream  ! 

Our  morning-star  of  song, — that  led  the 

way 

To  welcome  the  long-after  coming  beam 
Of  Spenser's  light,  and  Shakespeare's 
perfect  day  !  " 


C  haucer.  2 1 

Chaucer  in  his  early  days  devoted  him- 
self to  French  and  Italian  models ;  but  he 
subsequently  fell  back  upon  his  own  in- 
stincts, and  produced  works  which  gave 
him  a  claim  to  be  called  the  first  English 
poet.  He  did,  indeed, 

"  Prelude  those  melodious  bursts  which  fill 
The  spacious  times  of  great  Elizabeth 
With  sounds  that  echo  still." 

Chaucer  is  said  so  far  to  have  re- 
sembled Petrarch  that,  like  him,  he  was  at 
once  poet,  scholar,  courtier,  statesman,  and 
man  of  the  world ;  but  considered  merely 
as  poets,  the  two  were  the  very  antipodes 
of  each  other.  Chaucer  might  be  styled, 
although  living  in  a  rude  age,  the  poet  of 
the  affections, — few  writers  having  ever  ex- 
celled him  for  his  animated  portraits,  as 
well  as  for  beautiful  passages  relating  to  or 
inspired  by  woman.  To  this  proclivity  of 
the  tender  passion  we  may  ascribe  much 
of  his  poetry.  After  a  protracted  court- 
ship he  espoused  the  lady  of  his  love, — 
Philippa  Picard.  It  seems  to  be  the  con- 
current opinion  of  scholars  that  little  is 
hazarded  in  assuming  that  his  Canterbury 
Tales  was,  as  to  plan  and  method,  sug- 


2  2  The  Story  of  Some  Famous  Books. 

gested  by  the  Decameron  of  Boccacio. 
This  work  of  Chaucer  was  the  product 
of  his  genius  in  its  full  maturity  ;  and  al- 
though over  five  centuries  have  elapsed 
since  the  noble  work  was  written,  and  not- 
withstanding its  obsoleteness  of  style,  it 
has  never  been  more  popular  with  scholars 
than  it  is  at  the  present  day.  There  is, 
indeed,  "  an  added  charm  in  its  antiquity, 
— something  picturesque  in  it."  Chaucer 
seems  to  have  surrendered  himself  to  the 
inspiring  influences  of  nature,  and  revelled, 
as  at  a  festival,  amid  birds  and  flowers  ; 
hence  the  rich  arabesque  character  of  his 
poetry,  and  the  marvellous  freshness  and 
bloom  of  his  pastoral  pictures.  The 
minstrel  may  also  have  derived  material  for 
his  work  from  Dante's  Divina  Commedia^ 
as  his  quotations  from  it  seem  to  show. 
The  Prologue  to  the  Canterbury  Tales 
introduces  us  to  a  company  of  pilgrims, 
twenty-nine  in  number,  who  have  met 
at  the  Tabard,  an  inn  at  Southwark  (but 
now  no  longer  standing).  There  they  are 
entertained  by  the  host  on  the  evening 
prior  to  their  commencing  pilgrimage 
to  the  shrine  of  Thomas  a  Becket,  in 


Spenser.  2  3 

Canterbury  Cathedral ;  and  these  "sondry 
folke,"  by  way  of  beguiling  time,  agree 
among  themselves  to  contribute  each  a 
tale.  These  "  tales  "  are  such  masterly 
pictures  of  life  in  Chaucer's  days,  that 
they  have  justly  elicited  the  following 
beautiful  tribute : — 

"  Old  England's  fathers  live  in  Chaucer's  lay, 
As  if  they  ne'er  had  died  :  he  grouped  and  drew 

Their  likeness  with  a  spirit  of  life  so  gay, 
That  still  they  live  and  breathe,  in  fancy's  view, 
Fresh    beings  fraught   with   truth's  imperishable 
hue  !  " 

Another  instance  of  the  inspiration  of 
the  muse  by  the  witching  power  of  beauty 
was  that  of  Edmund  Spenser,  since  it  is 
known  that  the  first  development  of  his 
genius  was  owing  to  such  influence.  To 
the  memory  of  his  Rosalind's  rare  beauty, 
to  the  long-felt  influence  of  this  first  pas- 
sion, and  to  the  melancholy  shade  which 
his  early  disappointment  cast  over  a  mind 
naturally  cheerful,  we  owe  some  of  the 
most  tender  and  beautiful  passages  scat- 
tered through  his  later  poems.  In  like 
manner,  Sir  Philip  Sidney  had  caught  his 
poetic  fire  from  the  glowing  eyes  of  his 


24  The  Story  of  Some  Famous  Books. 

"  Stella,"  and  that  hapless  gallant,  the 
Earl  of  Surrey,  from  the  fascinations  of  his 
fair  "  Geraldine."  Referring  to  the  master- 
passion,  Emerson  said : — 

"No  man  ever  forgot  the  visitation  of  that 
power  to  his  heart  and  brain  which  created  all 
things  new — which  was  the  dawn  in  him  of  music, 
poetry,  and  art — which  made  the  face  of  Nature 
radiant  with  purple  'light- — the  morning  and  the 
night  varied  enchantments." 

The  plan  of  Spenser's  Faerie  Queen  is 
described  in  his  prefatory  letter  to  Sir 
Walter  Raleigh.  The  twelve  books  were 
to  tell  the  warfare  of  twelve  knights,  in 
whom  the  twelve  virtues  of  Aristotle  were 
represented.  Only  six  of  these  books 
have  descended  to  us  ;  the  rest,  if  ever 
written,  were  supposed  to  have  been  de- 
stroyed in  the  fire  which  occurred  at 
Spenser's  castle  in  Ireland.  It  was  here, 
in  1589,  that  he  composed  the  first  three 
books,  and  then  read  them  to  Raleigh, 
who  was  so  delighted  with  the  poem  that 
he  brought  Spenser  to  England,  and  the 
Queen,  the  Court,  and  the  literary  world 
were  equally  pleased — it  being  the  first 
great  ideal  poem  yet  produced.  Raleigh 


Sir  Walter  Raleigh.  2  5 

introduced  Spenser  to  Queen  Elizabeth, 
and  Campbell  thus  alludes  to  this  meet- 
ing:— 

"  The  fancy  might  even  be  pardoned  for  a 
momentary  superstition,  that  the  genius  of  their 
country  hovered  unseen  over  their  meeting,  casting 
her  first  look  of  regard  on  the  poet  that  was  de- 
stined to  inspire  her  future  Milton,  and  the  other 
on  the  maritime  hero  who  paved  the  way  for 
colonizing  distant  regions  of  the  earth,  where  the 
language  of  England  was  to  be  spoken,  and  the 
poetry  of  Spenser  to  be  admired." 

The  gallant  but  unfortunate  Sir  Walter 
Raleigh's  history  is  replete  with  touching 
interest.  The  following  lines,  supposed 
to  be  the  last  he  ever  wrote,  possess  all 
the  more  interest  for  the  fact  of  their  being 
found  written  in  his  Bible,  on  the  evening 
preceding  his  execution  : — 

"  Even  such  is  Time,  that  takes  on  trust 
Our  youth,  our  joys,  our  all  we  have, 
And  pays  us  but  with  age  and  dust  ; 
Who  in  the  dark  and  silent  grave, 
When  we  have  wandered  all  our  ways, 
Shuts  up  the  story  of  our  days  : 
But  from  this  earth,  this  grave,  this  dust, 
My  God  shall  raise  me  up,  I  trust ! " 

Spenser,  who  has  been  justly  styled  the 
"  Poet's  poet,"  has  been  the  inspiration  of 


26  The  Story  of  Some  Famous  Books. 

many  poets  of  succeeding  ages — of  Milton 
among  others.  Cowley,  when  a  boy,  read 
the  Faerie  Queen,  and  became  "irrevo- 
cably a  poet."  He  was  Dryden's  master 
in  English.  Pope  was  enthusiastic  over 
it,  so  were  Collins,  Gray,  Thomson, 
Wordsworth,  Byron,  Shelley,  and  Keats. 
The  following  anecdote  by  Pope  re- 
specting his  work  is  related  by  Spence : — 

"After  reading  a  canto  of  Spenser  two  or  three 
days  ago  to  an  old  lady,  she  said  that  I  had  been 
showing  her  a  gallery  of  pictures.  I  don't  know 
how  it  is,  but  she  said  right,  there  is  something  in 
Spenser  that  pleases  one  as  strongly  in  one's  old 
age  as  it  did  in  one's  youth.  I  read  the  Faerie  Queen 
when  I  was  about  twelve,  with  infinite  delight; 
and  I  think  it  gave  me  as  much  when  I  read  it 
over  a  year  or  two  ago." 

This  great  work  on  which  Spenser's 
fame  rests  had  been  begun  at  an  early 
stage  of  his  career,  and  was,  it  seems, 
slighted  on  account  of  its  ethics.  Sub- 
sequently, in  a  conversation  with  some 
friends,  one  of  them  complained  that  no 
English  poet  had  given  the  teachings  and 
precepts  of  Aristotle  and  Plato  in  English 
verse,  and  turning  to  Spenser,  said  : — 


Spenser.  2  7 

"It  is  you,  sir,  to  whom  it  pertaineth  to  show 
yourself  courteous  now  unto  us  all,  and  to  make 
us  beholding  unto  you  for  the  pleasure  and  profit 
which  we  shall  gather  from  your  speeches,  if  you 
shall  vouchsafe  to  open  unto  us  the  goodly  cabinet 
in  which  this  excellent  treasure  of  virtues  lieth 
locked  up  from  the  vulgar  sort.  .  .  .'  'I  doubt 
not, '  answered  Spenser,  '  but  with  the  consent  of 
most  part  of  you,  I  shall  be  excused  at  this  time  of 
this  task  which  would  be  laid  upon  me  ;  for  sure 
I  am  that  it  is  not  unknown  to  you  I  have  already 
undertaken  a  work  to  the  same  effect,  which  is  in 
heroical  verse,  under  the  title  of  the  Faerie  Queen, 
to  represent  all  the  moral  virtues,  assigning  to 
every  virtue  a  knight,  to  be  the  patron  and  defender 
of  the  same.  .  .  .'"  ' 

.  In  1584  he  had  already  advanced  some 
way  with  the  work;  and  in  1590,  going  to 
England  with  Raleigh,  he  published  the 
first  three  books.  In  1596  he  published 
three  more  books,  and  these,  with  some 
stanzas  of  a  seventh  book,  found  after  his 
death,  are  all  that  we  have  of  the  twelve 
books  originally  contemplated.  Spenser's 
epic  contains  many  deep  religious  truths 
couched  in  the  form  of  allegory ;  the  curi- 
ous reader  of  the  First  Book  may  see  that 
it  contains  the  germ  of  the  thoughts  after- 

1  Croft's  English  Literature. 


2  8  The  Story  of  Some  Famous  Books. 

wards  expanded  in  Bunyan's  Pilgrim's 
Progress.  Among  these  may  be  men- 
tioned the  description  of  Despair  and  his 
advice  to  the  Red  Cross  Knight  to  commit 
suicide  ;  the  House  of  Holiness,  where  the 
knight  is  admitted  by  the  porter  Humility, 
tended  by  the  three  maidens,  Faith,  Hope, 
and  Charity,  and  comforted  by  an  ancient 
matron  named  Mercy.  From  the  top  of 
a  hill  an  old  man  points  out  to  him  a 
distant  view  of  the  heavenly  city. 

We  must  not  forget  the  celebrated  work 
that  had  so  great  an  influence  upon  the 
literature  of  that  and  the  following  age,  the 
Arcadia  of  Sir  Philip  Sidney.  That  quaint 
yet  poetic,  pastoral  romance  was,  in  prose, 
like  Spenser's  Faerie  Queen  in  verse,  a 
treasury  of  intellectual  beauties.  It  should 
be  remembered  in  judging  the  work  of 
Sir  Philip  Sidney,  that  he  thought  very 
meanly  of  it  himself,  and  that  he  never 
intended  it  for  publication.  Dedicating 
the  book  to  his  "  Dear  lady  and  fair  sister 
the  Countess  of  Pembroke,"  he  says  : — 

"  You  desired  me  to  do  it,  and  your  desire,  to 
my  heart,  is  an  absolute  commandment.  Now  it 
is  done  only  for  you,  only  to  you." 


Sidney 's  "  Arcadia."  29 

Aubrey  tells  us  that  Sidney 

"  was  wont  to  take  his  table-book  out  of  his 
pocket  and  write  down  his  notions  as  they  came 
into  his  head,  as  he  was  hunting  on  Sarum's 
pleasant  plains." 

It  was  in  1580  that  Sidney  began  the 
composition  of  his  romance. 

A  few  years  since  there  was  exhibited 
before  the  Archaeological  Society  at  Salis- 
bury a  copy  of  the  Arcadia,  between  the 
leaves  of  which  was  found  wrapped  up  the 
lock  of  the  Queen's  hair,  and  some  com- 
plimentary lines  addressed  by  Sidney  to 
her.  The  hair  was  soft  and  bright,  of  a 
light-brown  colour,  inclining  to  red,  and 
on  the  paper  enclosing  it  was  written : — 
"This  lock  of  Queen  Elizabeth's  own 
hair  was  presented  to  Sir  Philip  Sidney  by 
Her  Majesty's  owne  faire  hands,  on  which 
he  made  these  verses,  and  gave  them  to 
the  Queen  on  his  bended  knee,  A.D.  1573." 
And  pinned  to  this  was  another  paper,  on 
which  was  written  in  a  different  hand,- 
supposed  to  have  been  Sidney's  own, 
these  lines  : — 

"  Her  inward  worth  all  outward  show  transcends, 
Envy  her  merits  with  regret  commends  ; 


3O  77/i?  Story  of  Some  Famous  Books. 

Like  sparkling  gems  her  virtues  draw  the  sight, 
And  in  her  conduct  she  is  alwaies  bright. 
When  she  imparts  her  thoughts,  her  words  have 

force, 
And  sense  and  wisdom  flow  in  sweet  discourse." 

Every  person  remembers  his  brave 
words  when  he  had  fallen  on  the  field  of 
Zutphen,  and  while  suffering  from  thirst, 
a  cup  of  water  being  presented  to  him : 
as  his  eye  met  that  of  a  wounded  soldier, 
he  exclaimed,  pointing  to  him,  "  Thy 
necessity  is  yet  greater  than  mine." 

Well  might  our  great  dramatist  say  of 
him  : — 

"  His  honour  stuck  upon  him  as  the  sun 

In  the  gray  vault  of  heaven,  and  by  his  light 
Did  all  the  chivalry  of  England  move 
To  do  brave  acts  !  " 

It  has  been  suggested  that  Sidney's 
Arcadia  was  modelled  upon  Sannazzaro's 
pastoral  romance  of  the  same  name  or 
title ;  but  it  is  certain  that  few  works 
enjoyed  so  great  popularity  among  scholars 
as  Sidney's,  or  excited  a  more  controlling 
influence  over  the  literary  taste  of  its  time. 
Both  Cowley  and  Waller  were  among  its 
admirers,  and  it  was  the  solace  of  the 


Sidney's  "  Arcadia?  3  I 

prison-hours  of  Charles  I.  Milton  states 
that  the  prayer  of  Pamela  was  introduced 
into  the  Eikon  Basilike  from  it 

Campbell  styled  Sidney  "warbler  of 
poetic  prose,"  and  we  find  in  addition 
some  lyric  verse,  scattered  on  his  pages, 
that  we  have  been  tempted  to  transcribe. 
Take  for  instance  these  two  stanzas  : — 

"  My  true  love  hath  my  heart,  and  I  have  his, 

By  just  exchange — one  for  the  other  given  ; 
I  hold  his  dear,  and  mine  he  cannot  miss  ; 

There  never  was  a  better  bargain  driven  : — 
My  true  love  hath  my  heart,  and  I  have  his. 
His  heart  in  me,  keeps  me  and  him  in  one ; 

My  heart  in  him  his  thoughts  and  senses  guides, 
He  loves  my  heart  for  once  it  was  his  own, 

I  cherish  his  because  in  me  it  bides ; 
My  true  love  hath  my  heart,  and  I  have  his  ! " 

The   following   leads   us   from   gay   to 
grave : — 
"  Since  nature's  works  be  good,  and  death  doth 

save 

As  nature's  work,  why  should  we  fear  to  die  ? 
Since  fear  is  vain,  but  when  it  may  preserve, 

Why  should  we  fear  that  which  we  cannot  fly  ? 
Fear  is  more  pain  than  is  the  pain  it  fears, — 
Disarming  human  minds  of  native  might ; 
While  each  conceit  an  ugly  figure  bears, 

Which  were  not  ill,  well-viewed  in  reason's 
light." 


II. 


MORE'S  "  UTOPIA."  —  Fox's  "  BOOK 
OF  MARTYRS."  —  ROGER  ASCHAM. — 
MONTAIGNE.  —  BROWNE'S  "  RELIGIO 
MEDICI."  —  PEPYS'S  AND  EVELYN'S 
"  DIARIES." 

SINE  of  the  noteworthy  books, 
known  at  least  to  scholars,  is 
the  Utopia  of  Sir  Thomas  More, 
the  idea  of  which  was  probably  taken 
mainly  from  the  Republic  of  Plato ;  at  any 
rate  this  is  the  opinion  of  Mr.  Hallam ; 
although  Sir  Thomas  was  doubtless 
familiar  with  other  writers  on  social  and 
political  economy  besides  Plato  and 
Aristotle,  for  in  the  famous  fragment  of 
Theopompus  of  Chios,  he  might  have 
found  some  suggestion.  In  this  writer, 
as  in  Plato,  we  discover  glimpses  of  a 
knowledge  of  the  great  Western  Continent, 
which  afterwards  reappeared  in  Pulci,1 
1  Adams's  Famous  Books. 


Mores"  Utopia?  33 

and  may  probably  have  led,  though  in- 
directly, to  the  eventual  discovery  of 
America  by  Columbus.  Euhemerus,  the 
author  of  Panchaia,  found  his  imaginary 
commonwealth  in  a  different  quarter  of 
the  globe ;  but  it  is  remarkable  that  he 
places  it,  as  More  places  his,  upon  an 
island,  and  in  that  very  Indian  Ocean  in 
which  "  Utopia "  is  said  to  lie.  This 
famous  work  seems  to  have  owed  its 
immediate  origin  to  an  embassy  in  which 
More  was  engaged  in  1515. 

"  He  had  always  been  a  favourite  with 
Henry  VIII.,  who,  with  all  his  faults,  was  able 
to  recognise  merit  when  he  saw  it ;  and  while  at 
Antwerp,  More  met  one  Peter  Giles,  a  man  of 
renown ;  between  them  an  intimate  friendship  was 
soon  formed.  It  was  there  and  then  that  Sir 
Thomas  wrote  the  second  book  of  his  Utopia,  the 
first  having  been  composed  at  London  the  year 
preceding.  The  manuscript  having  been  read  by 
Erasmus,  was  forthwith  published  in  Latin,  and 
'saluted  on  all  sides  by  a  chorus  of  decided 
admiration.'" 

And  many  translations  of  the  work  have 
since  been  published. 

Following  the  chronological  order,  we 
meet  with  the  well-known  Book  of  Martyrs, 

3 


3  4  The  Story  of  Some  Famous  Books, 

by  John  Fox,  who,  espousing  the  Pro- 
testant faith,  shared  with  many  others  of 
his  creed  the  persecutions  then  incident 
thereto. 

"  From  the  time  of  his  expulsion  from  his  college 
at  Oxford  until  his  death,  the  career  of  Fox  was 
marked  by  a  series  of  misfortunes  which  probably 
assisted  him  in  sympathising  with  the  sufferings  of 
those  martyrs  whose  trials  he  was  so  soon  to  put 
on  record,  and  whose  example,  so  far  as  it  taught 
him  patience  in  tribulation,  he  faithfully  followed." 

Now  that  he  was  deprived  of  his 
academic  emoluments,  he  had  to  seek 
assistance  from  his  Protestant  friends,  and 
after  enduring  many  trials  and  adversities, 
he  went  with  others  to  their  asylum  at 
Antwerp,  and  then  settled  at  Basle,  where 
he  devoted  himself  to  the  great  history 
with  which  his  name  is  associated,  and 
which  took  eleven  years  to  complete. 
He  here  found  employment  chiefly  in 
revising  manuscripts,  which  proved  ade- 
quate to  his  support.  After  the  accession 
of  Elizabeth  to  the  throne,  Fox  returned 
to  London,  and  we  find  him  living  in  the 
memorable  Grub  Street, — 

"  then,  as  in  the  days  of  Pope,  the  asylum  of 
the  more  laborious  but  less  affluent  authors ;  and 


Fox's  "  Book  of  Martyrs?       3  5 

from  that  time  until  his  death  in  1587  he  was 
occupied  in  literary  work  for  John  Day,  the 
printer." 

When  his  Marty rology  was  begun  is 
not  ascertained,  but  it  is  supposed  that 
the  idea  of  its  compilation  may  have  first 
occurred  to  him  while  engaged  in  studying 
the  history  of  the  Church  at  college ; 
although  it  has  been  stated  that  it  was 
first  suggested  to  Fox  by  Lady  Jane  Grey. 
When  it  is  remembered  that  his  work  was 
written  in  Latin,  the  translation  of  which 
forms  three  huge  folio  volumes,  we  can 
form  some  estimate  of  the  enormous  labour 
he  had  devoted  to  it.  It  is  satisfactory 
to  learn  that  the  publication  of  this  book 
was  an  immediate  and  signal  success,  for 

"  he  received  the  cordial  approbation  of  the 
heads  of  the  Church,  and  the  '  Acts  and  Monu- 
ments '  were  ordered  to  be  set  up  in  every  one  of 
the  parish  churches  of  England,"  etc. 

How  greatly  this  important  protest 
against  spiritual  despotism  has  contributed 
to  the  onward  march  of  human  progress 
and  civil  and  religious  freedom  it  would 
be  impossible  to  estimate.  It  was  this 
book,  accompanied  with  the  Bible,  that 


3  6  The  Story  of  Some  Famous  Books. 

gave  inspiration  to  Bunyan,  and  stirred 
his  wonderful  zeal  and  energy  to  pourtray 
for  the  world  his  immortal  allegory,  The 
Pilgrim's  Progress. 

We  now  introduce  a  different  type  of 
student  life,  Roger  Ascham,  who  is  known 
to  us  by  his  quaint  work  entitled  Toxo- 
philus,  or  the  Schole  of  Shootinge,  and  who 
but  for  his  love  of  archery  would  not  pro- 
bably have  written  The  Schoolmaster,  or 
if  the  exigencies  of  his  profession  had  not 
convinced  him  that  the  mode  of  education 
common  in  his  time  was  not  the  best  that 
it  was  possible  to  devise.  It  is  only  too 
clear  that  the  literary  outcome  of  a  man 
is  inevitably  affected  by  even  the  minute 
incidents  of  his  career,  and,  therefore,  had 
we  space  it  would  be  interesting  to  sum- 
marise the  life  of  this  noteworthy  writer. 
But  it  must  suffice  to  state  that  he  was 
moved  to  the  compiling  his  Toxophilus,  to 
cite  his  antique  style, 

"  Partly  e  provoked  by  the  counsell  of  some 
gentlemen,  partlye  moved  by  the  love  whiche  I 
have  alwayes  borne  toward  shotynge,  I  have 
written  this  lytle  treatise,  wherein  if  I  have  not 
satisfied  any  man,  I  trust  he  wyll  the  rather  be 
content  with  my  doying,  because  I  am  (I  suppose) 


Roger  Ascham.  37 

the  firste  whiche  hath  sayde  any  thynge  in  this 
matter." 

It  may  be  stated  that  The  Schole  of 
Shootinge  is  in  two  parts,  and  in  the  form 
of  a  conversation  between  two  college 
fellows — "  Toxophilus  "  (the  lover  of 
archery)  and  "  Philologus "  (the  lover  of 
learning) — who  hold  colloquy  amid  the 
woods  and  fields  near  Cambridge,  con- 
cerning the  respective  claims  of  the  Booke. 
and  the  Bowe.  He  became  prebend  in 
York  Cathedral,  and  he  died  in  1568, 
greatly  lamented  by  the  Queen,  who,  it  is 
said,  exclaimed,  "  I  would  rather  have  lost 
ten  thousand  pounds  than  to  have  lost 
my  old  tutor,  Ascham  !  "  Shortly  after  his 
death  his  larger  and  most  celebrated  work, 
The  Schoolmaster,  was  published.  In  his 
preface,  the  author  informs  the  reader  as 
to  the  origin  of  the  work  ;  which  appears 
to  have  arisen  out  of  a  dinner  given  by 
Sir  William  Cecil. 

"At  which  were  present  the  most  of  her 
Majesties  most  honorable  privye  counsell,  and  the 
rest  serving  in  verye  good  place.  I  was  glad  to  be 
there  in  the  companie  of  so  many  wise  and  good 
men  together,  as  hardly  could  have  been  picked 
out  againe,  out  of  alle  England  beside." 


38  The  Story  of  Some  Famous  Books. 

It  seems  that  one  of  this  illustrious 
company  referred  to  the  condition  of  Eton 
College,  and  the  system  of  tuition  then 
existing,  being  accompanied  with  harsh- 
ness in  discipline,  etc.  This  incident 
seems  to  have  aroused  Ascham,  and  in- 
duced him  to  prepare  his  treatise  on  the 
subject  of  education.  His  favourite  pupil 
was  the  gentle  and  accomplished  but  ill- 
fated  Lady  Jane  Grey. 

Montaigne,  the  essayist  (temp.  1533 
to  1592),  whose  name  was  derived  from 
the  chateau  where  he  was  born  and  re- 
sided, gives  us  no  definite  idea  of  what 
induced  him  to  write  his  famous  essays, 
which  grew  into  existence  during  a  period 
of  ten  years, — garrulous  as  he  is  on  a 
variety  of  subjects.  It  is  very  probable 
that  if  they  were  at  first  intended  to  have 
any  special  form  at  all,  it  was  that  of  a 
table-book  or  journal ;  such  books  were 
never  more  commonly  kept  than  in  the 
sixteenth  century.  But  the  author  must 
have  been  more  or  less  conscious  of  an 
order  existing  in  the  seeming  disorder 
of  his  thoughts,  since  he  has  arranged 
them  into  chapters.  Although  this 


Montaigne's  "  Essays."          39 

rambling  essayist  has  made  titles  to  his 
chapters,  he  is  so  discursive  that  his 
digressions  prevail  more  frequently  than 
any  direct  line  of  thought ;  and  his 
quotations  are  more  conspicuous  still  in 
his  motley  pages.  His  sole  object,  he 
admits,1  was  t6  leave  for  his  relatives  and 
friends  a  mental  portrait  of  himself,  de- 
fects and  all ;  while  he  professed  indiffer- 
ence alike  as  to  his  fame,  or  the  utility 
of  his  writings.  Yet  notwithstanding  all 
this,  his  Essays  have  ever  been  found 
among  the  accepted  literature  of  the 

1  Montaigne,  in  his  preface  to  his  Essays,  thus 
writes  : — "  Here,  reader,  is  a  book  written  in  all 
good  faith.  It  warns  thee  at  the  outset,  that  I 
have  proposed  to  myself  no  end  but  a  family  and 
private  one  ;  I  had  in  it  no  thought  of  the  profit 
or  of  my  own  glory  ;  my  powers  are  not  capable 
of  such  an  undertaking.  I  have  dedicated  it  to 
the  special  convenience  of  my  relations  and  friends, 
in  order  that  when  they  have  lost  me  (which  they 
must  needs  do  very  soon),  they  may  here  recover 
some  traits  of  my  character  and  humour,  and  that 
by  this  means  they  may  preserve  more  perfect  and 
lively  the  knowledge  which  they  had  of  me  in 
life.'  His  two  first  books  of  Essays  were  given 
to  the  press  in  1580  at  Bordeaux.  He  had  begun 
their  composition  at  least  eight  years  before ;  it 
was  slowly  and  by  degrees  that  they  took  shape 
under  his  hand  ;  and  he  kept  continually  adding  to 
them,  as  he  admits. 


4O  The  Story  of  Some  Famous  Books. 

library.  Montaigne  seems  to  have  lived 
a  life  of  elegant  leisure,  and  delighted 
in  literary  and  scholastic  pursuits.  In 
his  study,  which  he  has  minutely  de- 
scribed, he  read  and  wrote,  and  indulged 
himself  in  the  luxury  of  studious  retire- 
ment. As  to  the  influence  his  productions 
have  exerted  in  the  world  of  letters,  we 
endorse  the  estimate  of  an  able  critic,1 
who  remarks : — 

"  It  would  be  impossible  for  the  stoutest  defender 
of  the  importance  of  form  in  literature,  to  assign 
the  chief  part  in  Montaigne's  influence  to  style. 
It  is  the  method,  or  rather  the  manner,  of  think- 
ing of  which  that  style  is  the  garment,  which  has 
in  reality  exercised  an  influence  over  the  world. 
Like  all  writers,  except  Shakespeare,  Montaigne 
thoroughly  and  completely  exhibits  the  intellectual 
and  moral  complexion  of  his  own  time. " 

Another  work  well  known  to  the  studi- 
ous reader  is  the  Religio  Medici  of  Sir 
Thomas  Browne,  who  took  his  degree 
as  Doctor  of  Medicine  in  1634,  and 
shortly  after  took  up  his  abode  at 
Shipden  Hall,  near  Halifax,  where  he 
composed  his  quaint  and  picturesque 
book. 

1  Mr.  Saintsbury,  Encyclopedia  Britannica. 


Browne's  "  Religio  Medici"     4 1 

"  There  seems  no  sufficient  reason  to  question 
Browne's  declaration  that  this  piece  was  composed 
for  his  private  exercise  and  satisfaction,  and  not 
intended  for  publication." 

Dr.  Johnson  leans  to  this  opinion  also  ; 
he  says : — 

"  This  has,  perhaps,  sometimes  befallen  others, 
and  this,  I  am  willing  to  believe,  did  really  happen 
to  Dr.  Browne  ;  but  there  is  surely  some  reason  to 
doubt  the  truth  of  the  complaint  so  frequently 
made  of  surreptitious  editions." 

Yet,  on  the  other  hand,  in  his  address 
to  the  reader,  prefixed  to  the  first 
authorised  edition,  Sir  Thomas  says : — 

"  This,  I  confess,  about  seven  years  past,  with 
some  others  of  affinity  thereto,  for  my  private 
exercise  and  satisfaction,  I  had  at  leisurable  hours 
composed  ;  which  being  communicated  unto  one, 
it  became  common  unto  many,  and  was  by  tran- 
scription successively  corrupted,  until  it  arrived  in 
a  most  depraved  copy  at  the  press.  He  that  shall 
peruse  that  work,  and  shall  take  notice  of  sundry 
particulars  and  personal  expressions  therein,  will 
easily  discern  the  intention  was  not  public." 

As  a  brief  example  of  his  style,  we 
cite  the  following  from  his  Religio  Medici, 
in  which  he  treats  of  God  in  nature  : — 

"  There  are  two  books  from  whence  I  collect 
my  divinity  ;  besides  that  written  one  of  God,  one 


42  TJie  Story  of  Some  Famous  Books. 

of  His  servant,  Nature, — that  universal  and  public 
manuscript,  that  lies  expanded  unto  the  eyes  of 
all.  Those  that  never  see  Him  in  the  one  have 
discovered  Him  in  the  other  :  this  was  the  Scrip- 
ture and  theology  of  the  heathen  ;  the  natural 
motions  of  the  sun  made  them  more  admire  Him, 
than  its  supernatural  station  did  the  children  of 
Israel.  Surely  the  heathen  knew  better  how 
to  join  and  read  these  mystical  letters,  than  we 
Christians,  who  cast  a  more  careless  eye  on  these 
common  hieroglyphics,  and  disdain  to  suck 
Divinity  from  the  flowers  of  nature.  ...  I  call 
the  effects  of  nature  the  works  of  God,  Whose 
hand  and  instrument  she  only  is ;  to  ascribe  His 
actions  unto  her,  is  to  devolve  the  honour  of  the 
agent  upon  the  instrument." 

We  subjoin  another  extract,  which  is 
characteristic  of  his  style  : — 

"  Time  past  is  gone  like  a  shadow  :  make  times 
to  come,  present ;  conceive  that  near,  which  may 
be  far  off.  Approximate  thy  latter  times  by 
present  appearances  of  them  ;  be  like  a  neighbour 
unto  death,  and  think  there  is  little  to  come  :  and 
since  there  is  something  in  us  that  must  live  on, 
join  both  lives  together,  unite  them  in  thy  thoughts 
and  actions,  and  live  in  one  but  for  the  other, 
He  Who  thus  ordereth  the  purposes  of  this  life, 
will  never  be  far  from  the  next,  and  is  in  some 
manner  already  in  it,  by  a  happy  conformity  and 
close  apprehension  of  it." 


Pcpsfs  "  Diary."  43 

The  Religio  Medici  was  composed  at 
leisure  hours,  and,  as  it  appears,  never 
would  have  reached  the  public,  but  for  the 
necessity  of  the  author  justifying  himself 
from  the  charge  of  responsibility  for  the 
corrupt  piracies  which  got  into  print  from 
privately  circulated  copies  of  his  MS.  Be- 
sides the  piratical  editions,  during  the 
author's  lifetime  eight  authorized  editions 
were  published ;  and  besides  these  the 
work  was  translated  into  many  European 
languages. 

There  is  always  a  charm  about  auto- 
biographical books,  even  if — as  in  the 
instance  of  Pepys's  Diary — its  literature 
be  not  of  the  highest  order.  This  work, 
however,  possessed  a  twofold  attraction. 
To  those  who  like  gossip  about  the 
personal  details  of  the  writer,  as  well  as 
to  others  who  prefer  historic  incidents 
given  by  an  eyewitness,  Pepys  will 
prove,  although  an  egotistical,  yet  a 
pleasant  companion.  It  is  not  my  pur- 
pose to  sketch  this  worthy,  he  himself 
having  rendered  that  service  unnecessary ; 
and  it  will  suffice  to  mention  the  date  when 
he  began  to  keep  his  Diary,  which  wa$ 


44  TJie  Story  of  Some  Famous  Books. 

January  ist,  1659-60,  to  the  end  of  May 
1669,  when  he  was  obliged,  from  defec- 
tive vision,  to  discontinue  his  daily  task. 
In  his  last  entry  he  says  : — 

"Thus  ends  all  that  I  doubt  I  shall  be  ever 
able  to  do  with  my  own  eyes  in  the  keeping  of 
my  journal ;  and,  therefore,  whatever  comes  of  it 
I  must  forbear,  and  therefore  resolve,  from  this 
time  forward,  to  have  it  kept  by  my  people  in  long- 
hand, and  must  be  content  to  set  down  no  more 
than  is  fit  for  them  and  all  the  world  to  know." 

That  his  Diary  was  originally  written 
in  shorthand  was  not  without  cause, 
since  when  it  was  deciphered  and  pub- 
lished in  1825,  the  editor  intimated  that 
it  had  been  found  "  absolutely  necessary  " 
to  make  numerous  curtailments. 

As  a  picture  of  the  times  in  which  he 
lived,  it  is  a  valuable  work,  and  although 
not  equal  to  Evelyn's  Diary,  is  yet  very 
amusing  for  the  details  it  gives  of  charac- 
ters and  events  of  that  epoch. 

There  is  a  wonderful  freshness  about 
this  work,  as  if  it  were  of  yesterday,  rather 
than  two  centuries  old ;  and  in  this  fact 
lies  its  chief  charm.  It  differs  from  ordi- 
nary books  of  its  class  in  this,  that — 


Evelyns  " Diary"  45 

"  the  author's  thoughts,  instead  of  having  been 
written  out  in  the  usual  way,  seem  to  have  recorded 
themselves  by  some  involuntary  automatic  process, 
as  words  are  registered  and  preserved  by  the 
phonograph.  By  this  means  the  idiosyncrasies 
of  the  bustling,  patriotic,  money-making  secretary 
have  been  kept  in  their  original  freshness  for  the 
entertainment  of  the  present  generation."  ' 

One  of  the  "  healthiest  and  most  in- 
structive of  books  "  is  the  Diary  of  John 
Evelyn,  although  it  does  not,  in  all 
respects,  strictly  fulfil  what  the  term  im- 
plies. Evelyn's  Diary  was  found,  among 
other  papers,  at  his  country  seat  at  Wotton, 
in  Surrey.  Evelyn  has  himself  told  us  in 
what  way  the  book  originated  : — 

"  In  imitation  of  what  I  had  seen  my  father 
do,"  he  remarks,  when  speaking  of  himself  in  his 
twelfth  year,  "  I  began  to  observe  matters  more 
punctually,  which  I  did  use  to  set  down  in  a  blank 
almanack." 

These  fragmentary  memoranda  were, 
it  seems,  transferred  from  the  blank 
almanacs  to  the  quarto  blank  book  in 
which  they  were  afterwards  found,  and 
from  which  the  work  was  printed.  This 
quarto  volume,  still  at  Wotton,  consists 

1  E.  S.  Fisher. 


46  TJie  Story  of  Some  Famous  Books. 

of  seven  hundred  pages,  written  closely 
by  Evelyn,  in  a  very  small  hand,  and 
comprising  the  continuous  records  of 
fifty-six  years, — a  period  the  most  roman- 
tic and  stirring  in  the  English  annals. 
Sir  Walter  Scott  said  that  "  he  had  never 
seen  a  mine  so  rich."  And  of  Evelyn 
himself,  it  may  be  said  that  he  was  one 
of  the  noblest  and  most  exemplary  of 
men  in  an  age  not  remarkable  for  purity 
and  virtue  in  its  high  places  of  power. 

The  manuscript  diary  of  the  celebrated 
John  Evelyn  lay  among  the  family  papers, 
at  his  country  seat,  from  the  period  of 
his  death,  in  1706,  until  their  rare  interest 
and  value  were  discovered  in  the  follow- 
ing singular  manner. 

Mr.  Upcott,  of  the  London  Institution, 
was  requested  to  arrange  and  catalogue 
the  library  at  Wotton,  and  one  day 
Lady  Evelyn  remarked,  as  he  had  ex- 
pressed his  great  interest  in  the  collec- 
tion of  autographs,  the  manuscript  of 
Evelyn's  Sylva  would  be  interesting  to 
him.  Replying,  as  may  be  imagined, 
in  the  affirmative,  the  servant  was  directed 
to  bring  the  papers  from  a  loft  in  the  old 


Evelyn's  "  Diary:'  47 

mansion,  and  soon  Upcott  had  the  de- 
light of  finding  among  the  collection  the 
manuscript  Diary  of  John  Evelyn, — one 
of  the  most  finished  specimens  of  auto- 
biography in  the  whole  realm  of  English 
literature.  The  work  was  published  in 
1818.  Wotton  House  is  embosomed 
among  the  grand  old  forest  trees  of  his 
estate,  and  these  he  described  in  his 
Sylva,  during  his  lifetime. 


III. 


FELTHAM'S  "  RESOLVES." — "  EMBLEMS."- 
BALLADS. — "  ROBIN  HOOD." — "  KING 
ARTHUR."  —  SHAKESPEARE.  —  HOBBES 
OF  MALMESBURY.  —  ST.  PIERRE. — 
"  BARON  MUNCHAUSEN."  —  BUNYAN'S 
"  PILGRIM'S  PROGRESS." — DRYDEN.— 
POPE.  —  "  ROBINSON  CRUSOE."  — 
"  GULLIVER'S  TRAVELS."  —  WALTON'S 
"ANGLER." — WHITE'S  "  SELBORNE." 

T  is  well  for  us  occasionally  to 
turn  aside  from  the  thronged 
thoroughfares  of  busy  life,  and 
escaping  from  its  turmoil  and  strife  of 
tongues,  in  the  cool  eventide  to  con  over 
some  of  the  suggestive  and  sagacious  tomes 
of  the  olden  times.  When  these  volumes 
were  written,  "  the  hum  of  Babel  did  not 
reach  the  scholar's  hermitage,"  for  it  was 
then  a  time  of  quiet  meditation,  as  ours 
is  of  unrest  and  earnest  activity.  One  of 


Thomas  Fuller.  49 

these  philosophic  thinkers — Owen  Felt- 
ham — thus  quaintly  writes  in  one  of  his 
letters  : — 

"  I  have  lived  in  such  a  course  as  that  my 
books  have  ever  been  my  delight  and  recreation ; 
and  that  which  some  call  idleness,  I  will  call  the 
sweetest  part  of  my  life,  and  that  is  my  thinking." 

His  well-known  book  of  aphorisms, 
which  he  called  Resolves,  like  Arthur  War- 
wick's Spare  Minutes,  a  contemporary  work, 
is  replete  with  sententious  wisdom.  But 
perhaps  more  prominent  among  these 
magnates  of  the  seventeenth  century  was 
Thomas  Fuller.  A  man  of  multifarious 
learning  and  great  judgment,  he  combined 
within  himself  those  qualities  which  minis- 
ter to  entertainment  as  well  as  instruction 
in  an  eminent  degree. 

"Next  to  Shakespeare,"  said  Coleridge,  "  I  am 
not  certain  whether  Thomas  Fuller,  beyond  all 
other  writers,  does  not  excite  in  me  the  sense  and 
emotion  of  the  marvellous.  He  was  incomparably 
the  most  sensible  and  least  prejudiced  great  man  of 
an  age  that  boasted  of  a  galaxy  of  great  men. " 

His  memory  was  wonderful,  and  for 
quaintness  and  humour  he  has  been  com- 
pared to  "  Hudibrastic  "  Butler.  To  the 

4 


5  o  The  Story  of  Some  Famous  Books. 

noble  order  of  pioneers  and  martyrs  for 
civic  and  religious  liberty — the  fraternity 
of  Cromwell,  Hampden,  Pym,  and  Milton — 
we  are  indebted  for  some  of  the  noblest 
inspirations  in  verse  and  prose  which  stir 
the  common  heart  of  humanity  to  this  day. 

"  It  was  the  short  and  splendid  period  of  Puritan 
mastery  interpolated  between  the  Shakespeare  of 
Elizabeth  and  the  Dryden  of  Charles  II. ;  and  a 
crowd  of  cavalier  poets  before  the  Revolution  and 
after  the  Restoration.  Side  by  side  with  these, 
'  with  his  garland  and  singing  robes  about  him, ' 
stands  the  solitary  sublime  form  of  John  Milton, 
perhaps  the  very  noblest  of  England's  sons."  l 

These  are  the  great  masters  of  the  lyre 
and  the  pen,  who  have  stood  for  the  de- 
fence of  human  rights,  both  civil  and 
religious  ;  and  who  have  also,  in  melodious 
verse  and  eloquent  prose,  taught  us  the 
high  themes  of  Christian  philosophy  and 
the  practical  ethics  of  daily  life.  What  a 
brilliant  constellation  of  stars  of  the  first 
magnitude  then  shone  forth  on  the  literary 
firmament, — Bacon,  Shakespeare,  Milton, 
Cromwell,  Bunyan,  and  Jeremy  Taylor, 
Barrow,  Hall,  South,  Leighton,  and  Hooke. 

1  Canon  Farrar. 


Quarles  " Emblems"          5  i 

They  lived,  although  in  troublous  times, 
calm  and  elevated  lives,  and  knew  by  per- 
sonal experience  the  import  of  the  beauti- 
ful remark  of  Norris  of  Bemerton,  that 

' '  when  all  is  still  and  quiet  in  a  man,  then  will 
God  speak  to  him,  in  the  cool  of  the  day  ;  and  in 
that  calm  and  silence  of  the  passions,  the  Divine 
Voice  will  be  heard." 

These  worthies  lived  for  a  high  purpose, 
and  they  have  bequeathed  to  us  the  fruit- 
age of  their  meditative  thoughts.  Said 
one  of  their  number  : — 

"  Intellectual  pleasures  are  of  a  nobler  kind  than 
any  others ;  they  are  the  inclinations  of  Heaven, 
and  the  entertainments  of  the  Deity." 

Francis  Quarles  is  only  known  to  the 
general  reader  by  his  Emblems,  which  first 
appeared  in  1635.  During  the  middle  ages 
there  were  several  writers  of  this  order,  for 
George  Wither  compiled  A  Collection  of 
Emblems,  Ancient  and  Modern,  etc.  But 
the  fame  of  Quarles  exceeds  all  others  in 
this  class  of  literature. 

"  His  visible  poetry,"  said  Fuller,  "  (1  mean  his 
Emblems),  is  excellent,  catching  therein  the  eye 
and  fancy  at  one  draught." 

Quarles  wrote  in  and  for  a  rude  age,  and 


5  2  The  Story  of  Some  Famous  Books. 

consequently,  as  the  popular  taste  has 
changed  since  then,  much  that  was  accept- 
able to  his  is  less  adapted  to  our  day ; 
however  much  some  persons  may  admire 
his  antique  style  of  illustrating  moral  and 
religious  truth.  Without  impugning  his 
undoubted  piety,  he  seems  to  have  in- 
dulged his  wayward  fancy  with  incongruous 
oddities, — or  strangely  "  endeavoured  to 
mix  the  waters  of  Helicon  with  those  of 
Zion ; "  and  these  eccentricities  are  un- 
fortunately more  conspicuous  than  are  his 
higher  qualities  as  a  writer.  He  seems, 
moreover,  to  have  written  his  verse  to  suit 
the  grotesque  wood-cut  illustrations  of  the 
book.  These  Emblems  were  written,  it  is 
believed,  at  the  suggestion  of  his  friend 
Benlowes,  author  of  Theophila,  whom 
Pope  describes  as  "propitious  to  block- 
heads," and  of  whom  Warburton  said  that 
he  was  "  famous  for  his  own  bad  poetry 
and  for  patronising  bad  poets."  Quarles 
made  an  excellent  little  volume,  to  which 
he  gave  the  name  Enchiridion, — a  book 
of  aphorisms  and  quaint  epigrammatical 
apothegms.  It  is  as  a  prose  writer  that  we 
discover  his  excellence. 


Percys  "  Reliques?  5  3 

A  brief  reference  to  one  or  two  of  our 
most  noted  old  English  ballads  seems  to 
lie  within  the  range  of  our  investigations. 
Perhaps  the  best  known  of  these  are 
King  Arthur  and  his  Knights  of  the  Round 
Table,  and  Robin  Hood.  Longfellow  calls 
the  ballads  "  the  gipsy  children  of  song, 
born  under  green  hedgerows  in  the  leafy 
lanes  and  by-paths  of  literature  in  the 
genial  summer  time."  The  troubadours 
of  Provence  were  of  the  class;  and  in 
England,  Drayton  wrote  the  stirring  ballad 
of  Agincourt;  and  in  the  same  sixteenth 
century  probably  was  written  the  Nut- 
brown  Maid. 

An  annotated  edition  of  Bishop  Percy's 
well-known  Reliques  of  Ancient  English 
Poetry,  edited  by  Mr.  H.  B.  Wheatley, 
has  imparted  to  this  subject  an  increased 
interest,  it  having  made  available  some 
new  information  concerning  the  original 
manuscript  source  of  these  antique  ballads. 
The  manuscript  itself  is  about  filteen 
inches  in  length  by  five  wide ;  some  of 
its  pages  at  beginning  and  end  are  lost, 
having  been  "used,"  it  is  stated,  "by 
some  servants  to  light  the  fire."  The 


54  The  Story  of  Some  Famous  Books. 

handwriting  of  it  is  assigned  to  the  year 
1650.  This  precious  relic  was  found  by 
Percy  under  a  bureau  in  the  house  of  his 
friend  Humphrey  Pitt,  of  Shiffnal,  Shrop- 
shire. The  reticence  which  Percy  and  his 
friends  observed  respecting  this  manu- 
script, and  their  refusal  to  permit  any 
person  to  examine  it,  made  it  a  matter 
of  doubt  as  to  whether  Percy's  claim 
of  his  ballads  being  founded  upon  it 
was  valid.  Ritson  the  antiquary,  and 
others,  made  common  cause  against  the 
Bishop ;  and  yet  he  kept  his  secret 
till  his  death.  But  thanks  to  the  enthu- 
siastic devotion  of  Dr.  Furnivall,  the  long- 
coveted  relic  has  been  given  to  the  world, 
in  the  year  of  grace  1868,  now  rescued 
from  the  risks  and  perils  to  which,  in  the 
manuscript  form,  it  has  been  so  long  ex- 
posed. Bishop  Percy's  Reliques  of  Ancient 
English  Poetry  appeared  in  1765.  This 
famous  work,  consisting  of  old  heroic 
ballads  and  songs,  was  chiefly  derived 
from  the  old  folio  manuscript,  with  the 
addition  of  some  pieces  from  the  Pepys 
collection  at  Cambridge,  the  Ashmolean 
library  at  Oxford,  the  British  Museum, 


Robin  Hood  Ballads.  5  5 

and  the  works  of  our  earlier  poets. 
The  collection  has  always  been  con- 
sidered of  great  value  to  our  literature, 
for  its  reproducing  the  old  chivalry  and 
minstrelsy  of  Elizabethan  times.  This 
work  it  was  that  captivated  Scott,  and 
inspired  his  Minstrelsy  of  the  Scottish 
Border. 

The  Robin  Hood  legend  dates  about  the 
close  of  the  twelfth  century.  The  tradi- 
tions concerning  this  English  outlaw  are 
mostly  derived  from  Stow's  Chronicle; 
but  modem  research  has  tended  very 
much  to  the  belief  that  Robin  Hood's 
existence  is  merely  one  of  the  myths  of  the 
middle  ages.  The  famous  ballad  is,  how- 
ever, one  of  the  most  popular,  not  only  with 
the  poets,  but  the  public  generally.  Stow 
tells  us  : — 

"In  the  reign  of  Richard  I.  (1190)  were 
manie  robbers  and  outlawes,  among  which  Robin 
Hood  and  Little  John,  renowned  thieves,  continued 
in  the  woodes,  despoyling  and  robbing  the  goodes 
of  the  rich.  The  said  Robin  entertained  an  hun- 
dred tall  men  and  good  archers,  with  such  spoyles 
and  thefts  as  he  got,  upon  whom  four  hundred  (were 
they  never  so  strong)  durst  not  give  the  onset. 
Poore  men's  goodes  he  spared,  abundantlie  reliev- 


5  6  The  Story  of  Some  Famous  Books. 

ing  them  with  that  which  by  theft  he  got  from  the 
abbeys  and  the  houses  of  rich  old  carles ;  whom 
Maior  (the  historian)  blameth  for  his  rapine  and 
theft,  but  of  all  the  thieves  he  affirmeth  him  to  be 
the  prince  and  the  most  gentle  thiefe." 

The  Robin  Hood  ballads  were,  doubt- 
less, the  popular  protest  against  the  oppres- 
sion of  the  privileged  classes,  uttered  in 
song ;  and  as  such  they  may  be  regarded 
as  the  prophecy  of  the  better  times  that 
followed. 

Now  as  to  that  pet  legend  of  the  poets, 
Prince  Arthur  with  his  Knights  of  the 
Round  Table,  he  is  supposed  by  some 
to  have  been  identical  with  an  actual 
Sovereign  in  England,  in  the  sixth  cen- 
tury. The  Welsh  bards  refer  to  a  Prince 
Arthur  fighting  against  the  Saxons  ;  and 
upon  this  basis  the  Arthur  of  romance  is 
believed  to  have  had  a  real  existence. 
The  Arthur  of  the  famous  legend  was,  by 
the  enchantments  of  the  sage  Merlin, 
enabled  to  do  many  wonderful  things,  and 
ultimately  to  assume  the  crown  of  England, 
and  also  to  marry  "  the  fairest  woman  in 
the  land."  With  her,  as  a  part  of  her 
dower,  he  acquired  the  enchanted  "  round 


Sliakespeare.  5  7 

table,"  which  had  once  belonged  to  her 
father.  About  this  he  formed  the  famous 
circle  of  "  Knights  ; "  with  these  he  began 
to  hold  his  brilliant  court  at  Winchester, 
the  wonderful  series  of  exploits  at  home 
and  abroad,  and  the  countless  adventures 
recorded  in  the  veritable  chronicle  of 
Geoffrey  of  Monmouth.  Even  in  his 
day, — that  is,  in  the  twelfth  century, — this 
romantic  legend  had  become  incorporated 
with  much  of  our  poetic  literature,  nor  has 
it  ceased  to  fascinate  the  minstrels  even  to 
this  day. 

Of  the  dramas  of  Shakespeare — who 
has  been  styled  "the  protagonist  on  the 
great  arena  of  modern  poetry,  and  the 
glory  of  the  human  intellect " — it  seems 
almost  superfluous  to  speak,  so  much  has 
already  been  written.  Owing  to  the  para- 
lysing influences  of  the  civil  war  which 
followed  some  score  of  years  after  the  first 
collective  edition  of  his  works,  it  was  re- 
served for  more  recent  times  to  discover 
the  opulence  of  his  wonderful  genius. 
Nor  is  it  necessary  to  remind  the  reader 
of  the  innumerable  editions  which  have 
appeared  during  the  century.  It  is  well 


5  8  The  Story  of  Some  Famous  Books. 

known  to  every  student,  that  many  if  not 
most  of  his  historical  dramas  have  their 
prototype  in  some  of  the  old  chroniclers  ; 
for  instance,  numerous  parallels  as  to 
names,  characters,  and  incidents  exist  in 
Macbeth,  Henry  VIII.,  and  other  plays 
which  are  mainly  identical  with  those  in 
Holinshed. 

Romeo  and  Juliet,  a  story  which  the 
Veronese  believe  to  be  historically  true, 
in  the  hands  of  Shakespeare  has  become 
the  love  story  of  the  world.  It  has  been 
traced  back  to  1303,  as  a  ballad  ;  and 
some  two  centuries  later,  Massaccio,  a 
Neapolitan,  gave  embodiment  to  the  story 
in  a  romance,  changing  the  scene  to 
Sienna,  and  varying  the  catastrophe. 

Aubrey,  the  antiquary,  informs  us  that 
our  great  dramatist  took  the  humour  of 
Dogberry,  in  Much  Ado  about  Nothing, 
from  an  actual  occurrence  which  hap- 
pened at  Grendon,  in  Buckinghamshire, 
during  one  of  the  poet's  journeys  between 
Stratford  and  London,  and  that  the  con- 
stable was  living  at  Grendon  when  Aubrey 
first  went  to  Oxford,  about  the  year  1642. 

The   old  chroniclers    Roger   of  Wend- 


Hobbes  "Leviathan."          59 

over  and  Matthew  Paris  give  the 
earliest  traditions  of  the  Wandering  Jew. 
According  to  Menzel,  the  story  is  but  an 
allegory  symbolizing  heathenism.  Lacroix 
suggests  that  it  represents  the  Hebrew 
race, — dispersed  and  wandering  through 
the  world,  but  not  destroyed. 

Next  to  Bacon,  the  most  conspicuous 
name  in  philosophy  of  his  time  is  that 
of  Thomas  Hobbes,  of  Malmesbury. 
His  renowned  work,  The  Leviathan,  was 
published  in  1651 ;  and  although  he  is 
certainly  of  the  school  of  the  French 
Freethinkers,  if  not  Atheists,  yet  his 
rhetoric  is  so  clear,  nervous,  and  forci- 
ble, that  his  work  is  believed  to  have 
exerted  a  controlling  influence  upon 
human  opinion  at  the  time.  He  is 
amenable  to  critical  and  correct  taste, 
as  well  as  to  morals,  for  his  opinions, 
which  few  in  our  day  would  be  found 
willing  to  espouse.  It  is  said  that 
Hobbes  was  fond  of  long  walks,  and 
that  he  carried  in  the  head  of  his  cane 
a  pen  and  ink-horn,  as  well  as  a  note- 
book in  his  pocket ;  so  that  he  was  at 
any  moment  able  to  commit  his  thoughts 


and  opinions  to  paper,  as  they  occurred 
to  him ;  and  thus  he  formed  his  Leviathan. 

It  is  generally  supposed  that  St.  Pierre's 
Paul  and  Virginia  is  a  purely  fictitious 
narrative;  but  this  is  not  so,  the  general 
outline  of  the  story  being  drawn  from 
facts.  The  old  church  of  Pamplemousses 
withstands  the  ravages  of  time,  and  the 
Morne  de  la  De"couverte  will  be  a  more 
enduring  monument  than  all.  *  The 
memory  of  Paul  and  Virginia  is  still 
cherished  by  the  people,  many  of  whom 
bear  their  names. 

Paul  and  Virginia,  although  the  pro- 
duction of  a  French  author,  is  so 
universally  known  in  the  translation  as 
a  choice  little  romantic  idyl,  that  it  well 
deserves  a  place  of  honour.  St.  Pierre, 
its  author,  like  our  Goldsmith,  seems  to 
have  been  a  hapless  son  of  genius,  for 
he  wrote  his  immortal  tale  in  a  garret 
on  the  Rue  St.  Etienne-du-Mont,  Paris. 
A  touching  incident  connected  with  the 
manuscript  of  Paul  and  Virginia  is  re- 
corded by  L.  Aime  Martin.  Madame 
Necker  invited  St.  Pierre  to  bring  his 
new  story  into  her  salon,  and  read  it 


" Paul  and  Virginia"          6 1 

before  publication  to  a  company  of  dis- 
tinguished and  enlightened  auditors. 
She  promised  that  the  judges  she  would 
convene  to  hear  him  were  among  those 
she  esteemed  most  worthy.  Monsieur 
Necker  himself,  as  a  distinguished  favour, 
would  be  at  home  on  the  occasion. 
Buffon,  the  Abb£  Galiani,  and  M.  Ger- 
main were  among  the  tribunal  when 
St.  Pierre  appeared  and  sat  down  with 
the  manuscript  open  before  him.  At 
first  he  was  heard  in  profound  silence; 
he  went  on,  and  the  attention  grew 
languid,  the  august  assembly  began  to 
whisper,  to  yawn,  and  then  listen  no 
longer.  M.  de  Buffon  pulled  out  his 
watch,  and  called  for  his  horses ;  those 
sitting  near  the  door  noiselessly  slipped 
out ;  one  of  the  company  was  seen  in 
profound  slumber ;  some  of  the  ladies 
wept,  but  Monsieur  Necker  jeered  at 
them,  and  they,  ashamed  of  their  tears, 
dared  not  confess  how  much  interested 
they  had  been.  When  the  reading  was 
finished,  not  a  word  of  praise  was  uttered. 
Madame  Necker  criticised  the  conver- 
sations in  the  book,  and  spoke  of  the 


6  2  The  Story  of  Some  Famous  Books. 

tedious  and  commonplace  action  in 
the  story.  A  shower  of  iced-water 
seemed  to  fall  on  poor  St.  Pierre, 
who  retired  from  the  room  in  a  state 
of  overwhelming  depression.  He  felt  as 
if  a  sentence  of  death  had  been  pro- 
nounced on  his  story,  and  that  Paul  and 
Virginia  was  unworthy  to  appear  before 
the  public  eye.  But  a  man  of  genius, 
Joseph  Vernet,  the  artist,  who  had  not 
been  present  at  the  reading  at  Madame 
Necker's,  dropped  in  one  morning  on 
St.  Pierre  in  his  garret,  and  revived  his 
almost  sinking  courage.  "  Perhaps  St. 
Pierre  will  read  his  new  story  to  his 
friend  Vernet,"  he  said.  So  the  author 
took  up  his  manuscript  again,  which  had 
been  since  the  fatal  day  laid  aside,  and 
began  to  read.  As  Vernet  listened, 
the  charm  fell  upon  him,  and  at  every 
page  he  uttered  an  exclamation  of  de- 
light. Soon  he  ceased  to  praise,  he  only 
wept ;  and  when  the  author  reached  that 
part  of  the  book  which  Madame  Necker 
had  found  so  much  fault  with,  St.  Pierre 
proposed  to  omit  that  part  of  the  narra- 
tive ;  but  Vernet  would  not  consent  to 


"  Pilgrims  Progress"          63 

omit  anything.  "  My  friend,"  exclaimed 
Vernet,  "you  are  a  great  painter,  and 
I  dare  to  promise  you  a  splendid  reputa- 
tion." His  prophecy  was  speedily 
verified,  for  within  the  year  fifty  editions 
of  Paul  and  Virginia  are  said  to  have 
been  published. 

The  authorship  of  the  Travels  of  Baron 
Munchausen  was  some  time  a  secret; 
but  the  book  is  now  ascertained  to  have 
been  by  Rodolph  Eric  Raspe,  a  scientific 
German,  who  died  in  1794,  while  superin- 
tending some  mining  operations  at  Mucress, 
in  the  south  of  Ireland.  While  employed 
in  the  mining  districts  of  Cornwall,  he 
wrote  his  Travels  of  Baron  Munchausen. 
He  is  believed  to  have  been  the  original 
of  the  character  of  Dousterswivel,  which 
Scott  introduced  into  the  Antiquary. 

The  Pilgrim's  Progress  was  written 
while  Bunyan  was  in  prison  at  Bedford, 
and  but  half  conscious  of  the  gifts 
which  he  possessed.  It  was  written  for 
his  own  entertainment,  and  therefore 
without  the  thought — so  fatal  in  its 
effects,  and  so  hard  to  be  resisted — 
of  what  the  world  would  say  about  it 


64  The  Story  of  Some  Famous  Books. 

It  was  written  in  compulsory  quiet,  when 
he  was  comparatively  unexcited  by  the 
effort  of  perpetual  preaching,  and  the 
shapes  of  things  could  present  them- 
selves to  him  as  they  really  were.  The 
Pilgrim's  Progress  is  a  book  which  when 
once  read  can  never  be  forgotten ;  it  is, 
and  will  remain,  unique  of  its  kind, — an 
imperishable  monument  of  the  form  in 
which  the  problem  of  life  presented  itself 
to  a  person  of  singular  truthfulness,  sim- 
plicity, and  piety,  who,  after  many 
struggles,  accepted  the  Puritan  creed  as 
the  adequate  solution  of  it. 

It  may  not  be  generally  known  that 
there  exist  in  the  British  Museum  the 
manuscripts,  and  also  a  printed  copy  of 
a  work,  written  by  Guillaume  de  Guile- 
ville,  a  prior  of  Calais,  who  died  in  1360. 
This  work,  both  as  to  its  plan  and  its 
characters,  bears  a  remarkable  resem- 
blance to  the  allegory  of  Bunyan ;  and 
it  has  been  supposed  that  that  work  may 
have  suggested  to  him  the  design  for 
his  Pilgrim's  Progress.  The  work  of 
Guileville  was  an  allegoric  poem  written 
in  French,  but  translated,  and  familiar, 


Bunyan.  6  5 

therefore,  to  the  English  public:  Yet  it 
must  be  remembered  that  Bunyan  was 
an  unlettered  man,  and,  as  far  as  known, 
possessed  only  his  Bible  and  Fox's 
Book  of  Martyrs ;  might  he  not  have 
been  wholly  ignorant  of  the  existence  of 
the  work  in  question,  and  the  similarity 
of  its  plan  with  that  of  the  Pilgrim's 
Progress  have  been  an  accidental  coin- 
cidence ? 

His  knowledge  of  books  must  have 
been  very  small,  but  the  English  version 
of  the  Bible,  in  which  our  language  ex- 
hibits its  highest  force  and  perfection, 
had  been  studied  by  him  so  intensely, 
that  he  was  completely  saturated  with  its 
spirit. 

"  He  wrote  unconsciously  in  its  style,  and  the 
innumerable  Scripture  quotations  with  which  his 
works  are  incrusted,  like  a  mosaic,  harmonize 
without  any  incongruity  with  the  general  tissue 
of  his  language." 

Bunyan's  natural  temperament  was 
sensitive  to  an  unusual  degree.  To  his 
fertile  brain  images  crowded  quickly 
upon  him,  and  his  ready  wit  as  quickly 
caught  the  points  of  similarity  between 

5 


66  Tlie  Story  of  Some  Famous  Books. 

the  various  stages  of  Christian  experience 
in  this  world  and  his  allegory.  No  one 
seems  to  have  helped  him  in  the  com- 
position of  the  work.  Like  Milton  in  his 
blindness,  Bunyan  in  his  imprisonment 
had  his  spiritual  perception  made  all  the 
brighter  by  his  exclusion  from  the  glare 
of  the  outside  world.  Many  persons 
who  may  be  conversant  with  the  Pilgrim's 
Progress  may  not  fully  appreciate  how 
much  of  fervent  piety  and  strong  sense 
as  well  as  picturesque  imagery  abound 
in  his  numerous  productions,  which  are 
said  to  amount  to  the  number  of  the 
years  of  his  life, — sixty.  Dean  Stanley 
has  justly  remarked  that — 

"We  all  need  to  be  cheered  by  the  help  of 
Greatheart  and  Standfast,  and  Valiant-for-the- 
Truth  and  good  old  Honesty  !  Some  of  us  have 
been  in  Doubting  Castle,  some  in  the  Slough  of 
Despond.  Some  have  experienced  the  tempta- 
tions of  Vanity  Fair  ;  all  of  us  have  to  climb 
the  Hill  of  Difficulty  ;  all  of  us  need  to  be  in- 
structed by  the  Interpreter  in  the  House  Beautiful ; 
all  of  us  bear  the  same  burden  ;  all  of  us  need  the 
same  armour  in  our  fight  with  Apollyon  ;  all  of  us 
have  to  pass  through  the  Wicket-gate, — to  pass 
through  the  dark  river  ;  and  for  all  of  us  (if  God 
so  will)  there  wait  the  shining  ones  at  the  gates 


Dryden.  67 

of  the  Celestial  City  !  Who  does  not  love  to 
linger  over  the  life  story  of  the  '  immortal  dreamer,' 
as  one  of  those  characters  for  whom  man  has  done 
so  little,  and  God  so  much  !  " 

Dryden's  celebrated  ode  for  the  festival 
of  St.  Cecilia's  Day  is  considered  one  of 
the  best  illustrations  of  the  pliancy  of  our 
English  extant.  One  day  Lord  Boling- 
broke  chanced  to  call  on  Dryden,  whom 
he  found  in  unusual  agitation,  and  on  in- 
quiring the  cause  he  replied  : — 

"I  have  been  up  all  night ;  my  musical  friends 
made  me  promise  to  write  them  an  ode  for  the 
feast  of  St.  Cecilia,  and  I  have  been  so  struck  with 
the  subject  which  occurred  to  me  that  I  could  not 
leave  it  till  I  had  completed  it ;  here  it  is  finished 
at  one  sitting." 

The  poem  is  designed  to  exhibit  the 
different  passions  excited  by  Timotheus  in 
the  mind  of  Alexander,  feasting  a  triumph- 
ant conqueror  in  Persepolis.  Dryden 
wrote  this  grand  ode  at  Burleigh  House, 
where  his  translation  of  Virgil  was  partly 
executed.  This  ode  has  been  pronounced 
unequalled  by  anything  of  its  kind  since 
classic  times. 

If  Dryden  is  to  be  considered  a  master 


68  The  Story  of  Some  Famous  Books, 

in  lyric,  Pope  may  be  called  the  most 
attractive  of  didactic  poets.  Yet  the 
latter  confessed  that  Dryden's  productions 
first  inspired  him  with  the  love  of  the 
muse. 

Pope  devoted  five  years  to  his  transla- 
tion of  Homer,  and  it  proved  a  great 
pecuniary  as  well  as  literary  success.  The 
manuscript  of  his  version  of  Homer's  Iliad, 
now  in  the  British  Museum,  presents  a 
curious  illustration  of  the  title  once  con- 
ferred upon  the  author,  of  "  paper-sparing 
Pope,"  as  the  writing  is  upon  the  backs 
and  corners  of  old  letters  and  fragments 
and  scraps  of  paper.  His  Essay  on 
Criticism  was,  on  its  appearance,  highly 
praised  by  Addison  in  the  Spectator,  which 
gave  it  at  once  great  success. 

The  Rape  of  the  Lock,  which  Johnson 
styles  "  the  most  airy,  ingenious,  and 
delightful  of  all  Pope's  compositions," 
was  occasioned  by  a  frolic  of  gallantry. 
Pope  says  in  his  dedication  to  Arabella 
Fermor : — 

"  It  was  intended  only  to  divert  a  few  young 
ladies  who  have  good  sense  and  good  humour 
enough  to  laugh,  not  only  at  their  sex's  little  un- 


Pope.  69 

guarded  follies,  but  at  their  own.  But  as  it  was 
communicated  with  the  air  of  a  secret,  it  soon 
found  its  way  into  the  world.  An  imperfect  copy 
having  been  offered  to  a  bookseller,  you  had 
the  good  nature,  for  my  sake,  to  consent  to 
the  publication  of  one  more  correct.  ...  As 
to  the  following  cantos,  all  the  passages  of  them 
are  as  fabulous  as  the  vision  at  the  beginning,  or 
the  transformation  at  the  end  (except  the  loss  of 
your  hair,  which  I  always  mention  with  reverence)." 

Pope  sought  the  solace  of  the  muse  to 
beguile  his  hours  of  physical  suffering. 
At  the  age  of  sixteen  he  wrote  his  Pastorals, 
and  soon  afterwards  his  poems  The  Messiah 
and  Essay  on  Criticism.  Pope's  bodily" 
infirmity  caused  him  to  be  at  times  very 
irascible,  which  once  occasioned  his  long- 
tried  friend,  Bishop  Atterbury,  in  plea- 
santry to  characterise  him  as  Mens  curva 
in  corpore  curva.  His  Essay  on  Man, 
which  was  his  next  production  in  order  of 
time,  so  replete  with  nervous  and  pictur- 
esque passages,  is  yet  tinctured  with  the 
heresies  of  his  friend  Lord  Bolingbroke. 

Dr.  Johnson,  referring  to  the  Essay  on 
Man,  after  saying  that  Bolingbroke 
supplied  the  poet  with  the  principles  of 
the  essay,  adds,  "These  principles  it  is 


70  The  S.tory  of  Some  Famous  Books. 

not  my  business  to  clear  from  obscurity, 
dogmatism,  or  falsehood." 

The  Dunciad  was  inscribed  to  Boling- 
broke,  to  whose  suggestion  he  was  indebted 
for  the  idea  and  many  of  the  principles 
which  are  therein  espoused.  It  was  not 
until  the  fourth  and  last  book  was  pub- 
lished that  Pope  avowed  himself  to  be 
the  author,  the  earlier  portions  being 
issued  anonymously,  for  fear  that  those 
writers  he  had  attacked  would  retort  upon 
him. 

Defoe's  Robinson  Crusoe,  when  first 
published,  and  for  some  time  afterwards, 
was  considered  as  a  genuine  history ;  and 
even  since  it  has  been  found  to  be  ficti- 
tious few  books  have  equalled  it  in  popu- 
larity. Its  merits  have  been  disparaged 
on  account  of  its  want  of  originality  ; 

"but  really,"  says  Sir  Walter  Scott,  "the  story 
of  Selkirk,  which  had  been  published  a  few  years 
before,  appears  to  have  furnished  our  author  with 
so  little  beyond  the  bare  idea  of  a  man  living  on 
an  uninhabited  island,  that  it  seems  quite  imma- 
terial whether  he  took  his  hint  from  that  or  any 
other  similar  story." 

Sutcliffe,  in  his  history  of  the  island  of 


" Robinson  Crusoe''  7 1 

Juan  Fernandez,  from  its  discovery  in 
1572,  gave  to  his  volume  the  title  of 
Crusoniana,  from  the  fact  that  it  was  the 
well-known  abode  of  Alexander  Selkirk 
on  this  island  which  furnished  Defoe 
with  the  materials  of  his  inimitable 
romance  of  Robinson  Crusoe.  From  this 
source  it  is  known  that  there  was,  pre- 
viously to  Alexander  Selkirk,  a  solitary 
tenant  of  the  island,  whose  sojourn  there, 
as  recorded  by  Dampier  and  Ringrose, 
must  have  been  known  to  Defoe,  and  to 
the  same  source  may  be  traced  the  original 
of  the  story  of  "  Man  Friday  "  and  his 
discovery  of  his  father  in  Robinson  Crusoe. 
The  following  is  the  extract  referring  to 
it:— 

"  At  the  moment  of  the  hurried  escape  of  a  crew 
of  buccaneers  from  Juan  Fernandez,  one  of  the 
crew,  a  Mosquito  Indian  named  William,  happened 
to  be  in  the  woods  adjacent  hunting  goats,  so  that 
the  ship  was  under  sail  before  he  got  back  to  the 
bay.  Poor  Will  had  only  the  clothes  on  his  back, 
a  knife,  a  gun,  and  a  small  horn  of  powder  with  a 
few  shot.  His  situation  became  still  more  critical 
when  the  Spaniards  entered  the  bay,  and  having 
caught  sight  of  him  made  a  diligent  search ;  but  he 
eluded  their  pursuit,  and  remained  the  sole  occu- 
pant of  the  island.  His  personal  history,  as  given  by 


7  2  The  Story  of  Some  Famous  Books, 

'Dam pier,  is  almost  as  romantic  as  that  of  Robinson 
Crusoe." 

It  was  in  1719  that  this  immortal  book 
made  its  appeal  to  the  public,  but  not 
until  it  had  been  rejected  by  -nearly  the 
whole  fraternity  of  London  publishers, 
which  is  not  saying  much  for  their  critical 
acumen.  William  Taylor,  more  astute, 
is  said  to  have  cleared  a  thousand  pounds 
by  his  publication  of  the  book,  which  rose 
into  immediate  popularity.  The  place 
where  Defoe  composed  his  romance  is 
believed  to  have  been  Stoke  Newington, 
where  he  was  living  at  that  time  in  retire- 
ment. This  is  the  work  upon  which  the 
fame  of  this  voluminous  writer  depends. 
It  has  been  translated  and  published  in 
almost  every  written  language,  and  still 
enjoys  literally  a  world-wide  renown. 

Swift's  Gulliver's  Travels  was  published 
without  the  name  of  the  author;  but  it 
was  soon  discovered,  for  it  was  at  once 
greeted  with  applause.  Johnson  said  of 
the  work  that  it  was 

"so  new  and  strange  that  it  filled  the  reader 
with  a  mingled  emotion  of  merriment  and  amaze- 
ment. It  was  read  with  such  avidity  that  the 


Walt on' s  "  A  ngler?  7  3 

price  of  the  first  edition  was  raised  before  the 
second  could  be  made  ;  it  was  read  by  the  high 
and  the  low,  the  learned  and  the  illiterate.  Criti- 
cism was  for  awhile  lost  in  wonder  :  no  rules  of 
judgment  were  applied  to  a  book  written  in  open 
defiance  of  truth  and  regularity." 

As  a  wonderful  satire  upon  the  follies 
and  excesses  of  those  times,  as  well  as  an 
extravaganza  for  amusement,  the  book  is 
yet  well  known. 

This  famous  politico-satirical  romance  is 
one  of  his  works  still  in  vogue,  and  the 
work  upon  which  his  reputation  as  a  prose 
writer  was  established.  Swift's  personal 
history  is  in  itself  a  romance;  indeed,  it 
seems  to  have  been  tinted  with  insanity, 
but  it  is  not  our  province  to  refer  to 
this. 

Of  Isaac  Walton's  Complete  Angler  so 
much  has  been  written  that  one  would 
think  no  more  need  be  added.  Charles 
Lamb  said,  "  It  might  sweeten  a  man's 
temper  at'  any  time  to  read  it;"  and 
a  later  authority  says,  "To  speak  of 
Walton  is  to  fall  to  praising  him;"  but 
Byron,  who  was  no  angler,  thus  refers  to 
him  : — 


74  The  Story  of  Some  Famous  Books. 

"  Angling,  too,  that  solitary  vice, 

Whatever  Isaac  Walton  sings  or  says ; 

The  quaint,  old,  cruel  coxcomb,  in  his  gullet 

Should  have  a  hook,  and  a  small  trout  to  pull  it." 

But  people  in  the  seventeenth  century 
concerned  themselves  little  or  nothing 
with  animal  suffering.  The  advice  which 
Walton  gives  for  the  treatment  of  live-bait 
is  proof  sufficient.  The  Complete  Angler 
is  Walton's  true  title  to  fame.  It  was 
published  in  1653,  the  year  in  which  Oliver 
Cromwell  was  declared  Protector,  and 
Walton  lived  to  see  his  work  pass 
through  several  editions.  It  has  long  since 
taken  an  undisputed  place  among  English 
classics;  while  to  speak  of  its  poetry, 
wisdom,  and  piety  would  be  to  repeat 
criticism  which  has  passed  into  common- 
place. 

All  we  can  learn  about  the  origin  of  the 
work  is  from  the  author's  preface,  where 
he  quaintly  says  : — 

"I  think  fit  to  tell  thee  these  following  truths  : 
that  I  did  neither  undertake,  nor  write,  nor  pub- 
lish, and  much  less  own,  this  discourse  to  please 
myself ;  and  having  been  too  easily  drawn  to  do 
all  to  please  others,  as  I  propose  not  the  gaining 
of  credit  by  this  undertaking,  so  I  would  not 


Walton's  "  A  ngler. "  75 

willingly  lose  any  part  of  that  to  which  I  had  a  just 
title  before  I  began  it,  and  do  therefore  desire  and 
hope,  if  I  deserve  not  commendations,  yet  I  may 
obtain  pardon.  And  though  this  discourse  may  be 
liable  to  some  exceptions,  yet  I  cannot  doubt  but 
that  most  readers  may  receive  so  much  pleasure  or 
profit  by  it  as  may  make  it  worthy  the  time  of  their 
perusal,  if  they  be  not  too  grave  or  busy  men. 
And  this  is  all  the  confidence  that  I  can  put  on 
concerning  the  merit  of  what  is  here  offered  to 
their  consideration  and  censure  ;  and  if  the  last 
prove  too  severe,  as  I  have  a  liberty,  so  I  am 
resolved  to  use  it,  and  neglect  all  sour  censures. 
And  I  wish  the  reader  also  to  take  notice  that  in 
writing  of  it  I  have  made  myself  a  recreation  of  a 
recreation  ;  and  that  it  might  prove  so  to  him,  and 
not  read  dull  and  tediously,  I  have  in  several  places 
mixed,  not  any  scurrility,  but  some  innocent,  harm- 
less mirth,  of  which,  if  thou  be  a  severe,  sour-com- 
plexioned  man,  then  I  here  disallow  thee  to  be  a 
competent  judge ;  for  divines  say,  there  are  offences 
given,  and  offences  not  given,  but  taken. 

"  And  I  am  the  willinger  to  justify  the  pleasant 
part  of  it  because,  though  it  is  known  I  can  be 
serious  at  seasonable  times,  yet  the  whole  discourse 
is,  or  rather  was,  a  picture  of  my  own  disposition, 
especially  in  such  days  and  times  as  I  have  laid 
aside  business  and  gone  a  fishing  with  honest  Nat 
and  R.  Roe  ;  but  they  are  gone,  and  with  them 
most  of  my  pleasant  hours,  even  as  a  shadow  that 
passeth  away  and  returns  not." 

"  Who  ever  read  Gilbert  White's  Natural 


76  The  Story  of  Some  Famous  Books. 

History  of  Selborne  without  the  most  ex- 
quisite delight  ?  "  was  asked  by  a  writer  in 
Blackwootfs  Magazine.  White's  Natural 
History  of  Selborne  and  Walton's  Complete 
Angler  are  both  books  possessing  such 
singular  attraction  to  contemplative  readers 
that  their  popularity  has  ever  continued 
to  increase.  The  cause  of  the  esteem  in 
which  they  both  are  held  is  mainly  the 
same. 

"  Honest,  manly,  and  godly  in  their  tone,  simple 
and  clear  in  their  style,  with  no  ostentation,  clear- 
ness and  accuracy  of  observation  in  those  subjects 
which  each  particularly  affected,  and  with  the 
charm  of  enthusiasm,  they  are  models  for  all  suc- 
ceeding writers  on  kindred  subjects." 

Gilbert  White,  the  author,  seems  to  have 
resembled  Isaac  Walton  in  his  love  of  rural 
sights  and  sounds — the  one  choosing  the 
woods  and  the  other  the  streams.  The 
lack  of  systematic  arrangement  of  his 
letters,  as  well  as  the  tone  of  the  letters 
themselves,  render  it  probable  that  they 
were  originally  written  without  any  design 
of  publication.  This  was  his  only  book, 
moreover,  and  this  is  suggestive  of  his 
freedom  from  literary  ambition.  His 


Whites  "  Selborner  77 

letters  give  us  not  only,  as  a  naturalist, 
much  interesting  information,  but  they 
also  afford  us  a  better  idea  of  the  author's 
personal  life  and  character  than  is  else- 
where supplied. 


IV. 

MILTON. — YOUNG'S  "NIGHT  THOUGHTS." 
— DR.  JOHNSON. — GRAY. — CAMPBELL. 

|EVER  does  poetry  better  attain 
its  true  dignity  than  when  it 
aspires  to  lay  its  choicest  gar- 
lands at  the  feet  of  Him  for  Whom  earth 
had  no  crown  save  one  of  thorns."  The 
words  of  Milton  are  as  true  as  they  are 
eloquent,  when  he  declares  the  proper 
office  of  the  poet  to  be  "  to  celebrate  in 
glorious  and  lofty  hymns  the  throne  and 
equipage  of  God's  Almightiness." 

The  origin  of  Paradise  Lost  has  been 
ascribed  by  some  to  the  poet  having  read 
Andreini's  drama  of  L'Adamo,  Sacra  repre- 
sentatione,  published  at  Milan,  1613;  by 
others,  to  his  perusal  of  Jacobus  de 
Theramo's  Das  Buck  Belial,  etc.,  1472. 
Yet  another  theory  insists  that  the  prima 
stamina  of  the  great  epic  is  to  be  found 


"  Paradise  Lost?  79 

in  Sylvester's  translation  of  Du  Bartas's 
Divine  Weekes  and  Workes.  It  is  said 
that  Milton  himself  admitted  that  he 
owed  much  of  his  work  to  Phineas 
Fletcher's  Locustes  or  Apollyonists.  He 
is  also  supposed  to  have  derived  inspira- 
tion for  his  great  epic  from  a  volume 
entitled  The  Glasse  of  Time,  by  J.  Peyton, 
1609. 

In  the  year  1654,  four  years  before 
Milton  began  Paradise  Lost,  the  famous 
Dutch  poet  Vondel,  who  was  recognized 
by  the  Writers'  Guild  as  the  head  of  native 
letters,  and  had  a  reputation  far  beyond 
the  limits  of  the  Netherlands,  pub- 
lished a  drama  called  Lucifer,  whose 
main  theme  was  the  rebellion  of  the  angels 
and  their  overthrow  by  the  armies  of  God 
under  the  leadership  of  the  archangel 
Michael.  Mr.  Edmundson  is  not  by  any 
means  the  first  to  indicate  Milton's  use  of 
this  drama,  but  he  puts  the  proofs  for  the 
first  time  before  readers  of  English,  and 
then  seeks  to  show,  "not  only  that  the 
language  and  imagery  of  the  Lucifer  exer- 
cised a  powerful  and  abiding  influence  on 
the  mind  of  Milton,  and  have  left  indelible 


8o  The  Story  of  Some  Famous  Books. 

traces  upon  the  pages  of  the  Paradise 
Lost,  but  that  other  writings  of  Vondel  can 
be  shown  to  have  affected  in  no  slight  or 
inconsiderable  degree  all  the  great  poems 
of  Milton's  later  life." 

Milton  did  use  the  ideas  of  Vondel 
largely.  But  he  also  used  the  ideas  of 
others,  English,  Italian,  Roman,  and 
Greek,  and  justified  himself  in  the  famous 
sentence,  "  Borrowing,  if  it  be  not  bettered 
by  the  borrower,  is  accounted  plagiarie," 
leaving  it  to  be  understood  that,  if  ever  he 
himself  borrowed  from  others,  in  all  cases 
he  improved  the  matter  taken. 

A  study  of  the  origins  of  Paradise  Lost 
and  Samson  Agonistes,  which  leads  directly 
over  into  Holland,  is  peculiarly  interesting 
to  Americans,  since  these  poems  appeared 
when  the  Atlantic  seaboard  was  freshly 
peopled  by  colonies  from  Holland  and 
Great  Britain.  It  is  in  every  way  a  matter 
that  touches  us  nationally  and  ancestrally. 
The  Pilgrims,  like  the  Huguenots,  who, 
with  the  Dutch,  founded  the  Eastern 
States,  were  all  more  or  less  affected  by 
Dutch  religious  questions,  Dutch  politics, 
and  Dutch  thought.  They  found  refuge 


Milton.  8 1 

in  Holland,  and  were  helped  by  Dutchmen. 
Milton  is  the  great  Puritan  poet  who  be- 
longs to  New  England  quite  as  much  as 
to  Old.  But  another  curious  link  in  the 
chain  is  the  fact  that  Roger  Williams,  of 
Rhode  Island,  during  his  return  to  London, 
taught  Milton  that  Dutch  language  which 
he  immediately  put  to  use,  not  only  in 
polemics  against  Salmasius  and  Morus, 
but  in  reading  and  digesting  the  religio- 
satiric  plays  and  epics  of  Joost  van  den 
Vondel. 

Milton  has  been  compared  to  the 
nightingale  because  he  warbled  his  stately 
harmonies  in  his  blindness ;  and,  on  ac- 
count of  his  loss,  to  the  bird  of  Paradise, 
which,  flying  against  the  wind,  best  dis- 
plays the  splendour  of  its  plumage.  Or,  as 
Gray  has  beautifully  apostrophised  him,  as 
one 

"  who  rode  sublime 
Upon  the  seraph  wings  of  ecstasy, — - 
The  secret  of  the  abyss  to  spy  ; 
Who  passed  the  flaming  bounds  of  space  and  time, — 
The  living  throne,  the  sapphire's  blaze, 
Where  angels  tremble  while  they  gaze  ! 
He  saw, — but,  blasted  with  excess  of  light, 
Closed  his  eyes  in  endless  night." 

6 


82  The  Story  of  Some  Famous  Books. 

Milton  did  not  commence  the  composi- 
tion of  his  grand  epic  until  he  was  forty- 
seven  years  of  age,  although  he  had 
matured  his  plan  for  the  work  several 
years  previously.  Milton's  epic  was 
formed  out  of  the  first  draft  of  a  tragedy 
to  which  he  had  given  the  title  of  Adam 
Unparadised. 

Paradise  Regained  is  attributed  to  the 
poet  having  been  asked  by  Elwood  the 
Quaker  what  he  could  say  on  the  subject. 
"  Thou  hast  given  us  Paradise  Lost ;  hast 
thou  nothing  to  say  of  Paradise  Found '?  " 
was  the  demand  of  Elwood  the  Quaker,  to 
whom  the  world  is  so  deeply  indebted  for 
his  care  of  the  poet,  for  carrying  him  to 
the  house  of  one  of  his  friends  in  a  genial 
climate,  some  distance  from  the  plague- 
stricken  city  in  which  he  habitually  dwelt ; 
most  of  all  for  the  answer  which  he  ob- 
tained to  his  appropriate  and  well-timed 
question. 

Milton  used  to  sit  leaning  backward 
obliquely  in  an  easy  chair ;  he  frequently 
composed  in  bed  in  the  morning,  but 
when  he  could  not  sleep  and  lay  awake 
whole  nights,  not  one  verse  could  he 


Milton.  83 

make ;  at  other  times  flowed  easy  his  un- 
premeditated lines,  with  a  certain  impetus, 
as  he  himself  used  to  believe.  Then,  what- 
ever the  hour,  he  rang  for  his  daughter 
to  commit  them  to  paper.  He  would 
sometimes  dictate  forty  lines  in  a  breath, 
and  then  reduce  them  to  half  the  number. 

There  is  no  spectacle  in  the  history  of 
literature  more  touching  and  sublime  than 
Milton — blind,  poor,  persecuted  and 
alone,  "  fallen  upon  evil  days  and  evil 
tongues,  in  darkness  and  with  dangers 
compassed  round" — retiring  into  obscu- 
rity to  compose  those  immortal  epics, 
Paradise  Lost  and  Paradise  Regained, 
which  have  placed  him  among  the  greatest 
poets  of  all  time.  The  Paradise  Lost  was 
originally  comprised  in  ten  books ;  sub- 
sequently the  work  was  divided  into 
twelve.  The  composition  of  the  work 
occupied  the  poet  seven  years. 

In  his  twenty-third  year  the  poet  was 
living  with  his  father  at  Horton,  in  Buck- 
inghamshire ;  there  he  continued  to  reside 
for  five  years.  In  those  years  he  wrote 
L Allegro  and  //  Penseroso,  Comus,  The 
Arcades^  and  Lycidas. 


8  4  The  Story  of  Some  Famous  Books. 

The  Comus  of  Milton  was  suggested  by 
the  circumstance  of  Lady  Egerton  losing 
her  way  in  a  wood. 

Milton  was  one  of  the  principal  pioneers, 
with  his  pen,  in  the  sacred  cause  of  liberty, 
as  well  as  our  "  poet  of  Paradise."  In  his 
latter  character,  Wilmott  pictures  him  to 
us  as  "  walking  up  and  down,  in  his  sing- 
ing robes,  in  the  cities  of  many  lands  ; 
having  his  home  and  his  welcome  in  every 
devout  heart,  and  upon  every  learned 
tongue  of  the  Christian  world." 

The  endowment  of  genius  is  from  the 
same  Divine  source  that  imparted  fragrance 
and  beauty  to  the  flower,  and  song  and 
plumage  to  the  bird. 

"  The  heart  that  suffers  most,  may  sing, — 
All  beauty  seems  of  sorrow  born  ; 
This  truth,  half  seen  in  life's  young  morn, 
Stands  full  and  clear  at  evening  : 
The  gems  of  thought  most  highly  prized, 
Are  tears  of  sorrow  crystallized." 

The  author  of  Night  Thoughts,  unlike 
most  of  his  brother-bards,  seemed  to  prefer 
the  shady  side  of  life ;  yet  this  gloomy 
proclivity  of  his  pen  is  the  more  singular 
from  the  fact  that  he  was  far  from  being 


Young's  "Night  Thoughts ."     85 

insensible  to  life's  genial  influences  and 
enjoyments.  One  day  walking  in  his 
garden  in  company  with  two  ladies,  one 
of  whom  he  afterwards  married,  his  servant 
came  to  announce  a  visitor  who  wished  to 
see  him.  "Tell  him  I  am  too  happily 
engaged  to  change  my  situation,"  was  his 
reply.  His  fair  companions  insisted  that 
he  should  obey  the  summons,  and  they 
took  him  to  the  garden  gate,  when  finding 
further  resistance  vain,  he  bowed  to  them, 
and  improvised  these  lines  : — 

"  Thus  Adam  looked,   when    from    the  garden 

driven, 

And  thus  disputed  orders  sent  from  Heaven ; 
Like  him,  I  go,  but  yet  to  go  I'm  loath, — 
Like  him,  I  go,  for  angels  drove  us  both  : 
Hard  was  his  fate,  but  mine  still  more  unkind, — 
His  Eve  went  with  him,  but  mine  stays  behind  !  " 

Notwithstanding  the  morbid  spirit  which 
pervades  and  overshadows  much  of  his 
poetry,  depriving  it  somewhat  of  its  potency, 
it  yet  abounds  with  grand  imagery  and 
impressive  eloquence.  Had  the  poet  but 
infused  a  little  star-light  into  his  Night 
Thoughts  they  would  have  possessed  a 
tenfold  charm. 


86  TJie  Stoty  of  Some  Famous  Books. 

Edward  Young,  who  was  chaplain  to 
George  II.  in  1728,  had  the  misfortune 
not  only  to  lose  by  death  his  young  wife, 
but  also  two  other  members  of  his  family 
circle;  and  to  this  triple  bereavement  is 
to  be  ascribed  its  sombre  hue,  as  well  as 
the  composition  of  his  poem  ;  which  was 
published  in  1746. 

The  latest  and  best  story  of  Johnson's 
Dictionary  is  by  Mr.  H.  B.  Wheatley,1 
from  which  we  cite  the  following : — 

"  Johnson  was  one  day  sitting  in  Robert 
Dodsley's  shop,  when  the  bookseller  took  occa- 
sion to  observe  that  a  dictionary  of  the  English 
language  would  be  a  work  that  would  be  well 
received  by  the  public.  Johnson  caught  at  the 
idea,  but  after  a  pause  said,  '  I  believe  I  shall  not 
undertake  it.'  A  few  years  after  the  publication 
of  the  great  work,  he  said  to  Boswell,  '  Dodsley 
first  mentioned  to  me  the  scheme  of  an  English 
dictionary,  but  I  had  long  thought  of  it.? 
Dodsley  took  great  interest  in  the  progress  of  the 
work  he  had  suggested,  and  he  appears  to  have 
supplied  Johnson  with  those  collections  of  Pope 
which  are  referred  to  in  the  Plan,  where  we  read  : 
'  Many  of  the  writers  whose  testimonies  will  be 
alleged  were  selected  by  Mr.  Pope,  of  whom  I 
may  be  justified  in  affirming  that  were  he  still 

1  Antiquary. 


Johnsons  "Dictionary?         87 

alive,  solicitous  as  he  was  for  the  success  of  this 
work,  he  would  not  be  displeased  that  I  have 
undertaken  it.'  Dodsley  also  thought  that  the 
work  would  gain  in  credit  with  the  public  if  it 
were  put  under  the  patronage  of  the  Earl  of 
Chesterfield,  and  he  induced  Johnson  to  address 
the  Plan,  which  appeared  in  1 747,  to  that  noble- 
man. Whatever  work  Johnson  may  have  done  at 
that  time  in  collection  of  materials,  there  can  be  no 
doubt  that  he  had  thoroughly  thought  out  his 
scheme.  The  Plan  is  a  masterly  production, 
which  can  be  read  with  pleasure,  for  the  elegance 
of  its  composition  and  the  justness  of  its  criticism. 
It  opens  with  a  certain  mock  humility,  in  which 
spirit  the  author  shows  in  the  strongest  terms  the 
low  estimation  in  which  his  vocation  was  held  by 
the  public,  with  the  evident  intention  of  raising 
that  vocation  by  his  own  performance.  This  he 
has  done  so  successfully,  that  the  title  of  lexico- 
grapher is  given  as  the  highest  honour  to  one  of 
our  greatest  writers.  Between  the  years  1 747  and 
1755  Johnson  slaved  away  at  his  arduous  labours, 
and  Lord  Chesterfield  forgot  the  very  existence  of 
his  humble  correspondent,  to  be  awakened  when 
it  became  known  that  the  Dictionary  was  nearly 
ready  for  publication.  '  The  patron  '  wrote  two 
articles  in  the  World,  where  in  a  light  and  airy 
tone  he  recommended  the  work  to  the  public,  and 
suggested  that  Johnson  should  be  accepted  as  dic- 
tator of  the  English  language.  The  reply  to  these 
soft  blandishments  came  quick  and  sharp  in  the 
form  of  a  scathing  letter  written  in  the  most  mag- 
nificent English,  which  will  be  read  to  the  end  of 


8  8  The  Story  of  Some  Famous  Books. 

time  with  pleasure  by  all  those  who  are  interested 
in  the  dignity  of  literature.  Carlyle  called  this 
letter  '  the  far-famed  blast  of  doom,  proclaiming 
into  the  ears  of  Lord  Chesterfield,  and  through 
him  of  the  listening  world,  that  patronage  should 
be  no  more.' " 

In  his  Preface  to  the  Dictionary  Johnson 
thus  refers  to  his  mode  of  selection  of 
terms  and  words  : — 

' '  When  I  took  the  first  survey  of  my  under- 
taking, I  found  our  speech  copious  without  order, 
and  energetic  without  rule.  Wherever  I  turned 
my  view  there  was  perplexity  to  be  disentangled, 
and  confusion  to  be  regulated :  choice  was  to  be 
made  out  of  boundless  variety,  without  any  esta- 
blished principles  of  selection  ;  adulterations  were 
to  be  detected,  without  a  settled  test  of  purity; 
and  modes  of  expression  to  be  rejected  or  received 
without  the  suffrages  of  any  writers  of  classical 
reputation  or  acknowledged  authority." 

In  the  scathing  retort  upon  his  quasi 
patron,  Lord  Chesterfield,  Johnson  writes  : 

"  Seven  years,  my  lord,  have  now  passed  since 
I  waited  in  your  outward  rooms,  or  was  repulsed 
from  your  door ;  during  which  time  I  have  been 
pushing  on  my  work  through  difficulties  of  which 
it  is  useless  to  complain,  and  have  brought  it  at 
last  to  the  verge  of  publication,  without  one  act  of 
assistance,  one  word  of  encouragement,  or  one 


Johnson's  "Dictionary"         89 

smile  of  favour.  Such  treatment  I  did  not  expect, 
for  I  never  had  a  patron  before.  Is  not  a  patron, 
my  lord,  one  who  looks  with  unconcern  on  a  man 
struggling  for  life  in  the  water,  and  when  he  has 
reached  ground,  encumbers  him  with  help  ?  " 

And  then,  referring  to  the  number  of 
persons   who,  for  fifty  years,  were  occu- 
pied   on    the    great    French    dictionary, 
while   he   worked  single-handed,  he  con 
eludes  with  a  pathos  unsurpassable : — 

"  I  may  sure  be  contented  without  praise  of 
perfection  which,  if  I  could  obtain  in  this  gloom 
of  solitude,  what  would  it  avail  ?  I  have  pro- 
tracted my  work  till  most  of  those  whom  I  wished 
to  please  have  sunk  into  the  grave,  and  success 
and  miscarriage  are  empty  sounds.  I  therefore 
dismiss  it  with  frigid  tranquillity,  having  nothing 
to  fear  or  hope  from  censure  or  from  praise." 

No  sooner,  however,  did  the  Dictionary 
appear,  than  it  was  greeted  by  the  pub- 
lic with  unbounded  favour. 

Boswell's  account  of  the  manner  in 
which  Johnson  compiled  his  Dictionary 
is  confused.  He  seems,  according  to 
another  authority,  to  have  begun  the 
Herculean  task  by  devoting  himself  to 
a  diligent  study  of  such  English  writers 
as  were  most  correct  in  their  use  of 


9O  TJie  Story  of  Some  Famous  Books. 

language,  and  under  every  sentence  which 
he  meant  to  quote,  he  drew  a  line,  and 
noted  in  the  margin  the  first  letter  of 
the  word  under  which  it  was  to  occur. 
He  then  delivered  these  books  to  his 
assistants,  who  transcribed  each  sentence 
on  a  separate  slip  of  paper,  and  arranged 
the  same  under  the  word  referred  to. 
By  this  method  he  collected  the  several 
words  with  their  different  significations ; 
and  when  the  whole  arrangement  was 
alphabetically  formed,  he  gave  the  defini- 
tions of  their  meanings,  and  collected 
their  etymologies,  from  Skinner,  Junius, 
and  other  writers  on  the  subject. 

Dodsley,  with  other  booksellers,  con- 
tracted with  Johnson,  single  and  unaided, 
for  the  execution  of  the  colossal  work  in 
three  years,  for  the  sum  of  fifteen  hun- 
dred and  seventy-five  pounds. 

Johnson's  general  habit  of  composing 
was  to  commit  to  memory  what  authors 
usually  put  on  record  with  pen  and  paper ; 
this  was  his  custom  in  consequence  of 
his  defect  of  sight.  He  wrote  The  Vanity 
ef  Human  Wishes,  being  the  tenth  satire 
of  Juvenal  imitated,  with  wonderful 


Dr.  Johnson.  g  i 

rapidity,  composing  on  one  occasion 
seventy  lines  without  putting  them  to 
paper  until  he  had  completed  them. 

Then,  his  uncommonly  retentive 
memory  enabled  him  to  deliver  a  whole 
essay,  properly  finished,  whenever  it  was 
called  for.  Sir  John  Hawkins  informs 
us  that  his  essays  hardly  ever  underwent 
a  revision  before  they  went  to  the  press ; 
and  adds  : — 

"  The  original  manuscripts  of  the  Rambler  have 
passed  through  my  hands,  and  by  the  perusal  of 
them  I  am  warranted  to  say,  as  was  said  of 
Shakespeare  by  the  players  of  his  time,  that  he 
never  blotted  a  line" 

Johnson's  latest,  if  not  his  best,  work 
was  his  Lives  of  the  Poets,  originating  in 
the  proposal  made  to  him  by  several 
publishers  that  he  should  write  a  few 
lines  of  biographical  and  critical  preface 
to  the  collected  works  of  the  English 
poets,  of  which  they  were  preparing  an 
edition. 

Johnson  himself  tells  us  he  has  written 
a  hundred  lines  of  verse  in  a  day  : — 

"  I  remember  I  wrote  a  hundred  lines  of  The 
Vanity  of  Human  Wishes  in  a  day." 


92  The  Story  of  Some  Famous  Books.. 

Referring  to  his  work  on  his  Dictionary, 
his  friend  Adams  asked  him  how  he 
expected  to  accomplish  it  in  three  years, 
since  the  French  Academy,  consisting  of 
forty  members,  took  forty  years  to  com- 
pile their  Dictionary.  Johnson  replied  : — 

"  Sir,  thus  it  is  :  this  is  the  proportion  ;  forty 
times  forty  is  sixteen  hundred.  As  three  to  sixteen 
hundred,  so  is  the  proportion  of  an  Englishman 
to  a  Frenchman  !  " 

The  laborious  work  necessary  for  the 
production  of  his  great  Dictionary,  which 
Dr.  Johnson  undertook  to  complete  in 
three  years,  occupied  eight,  in  writing, 
correcting,  and  revising.  After  thirty 
years  of  intense  devotion  to  literature, 
George  III.  honoured  him  with  a  pension 
of  three  hundred  pounds  a  year,  and  thus 
rescued  him  from  the  pressure  of  pecu- 
niary embarrassments.  Johnson's  well- 
known  poem,  The  Vanity  of  Human 
Wishes^ — which  was  the  admiration  of 
Byron  and  Scott, —  alone  may  assign 
to  him  a  niche  in  the  poetic  Pantheon. 

Johnson  must  have  had  a  certain  grim 
pleasure  when  he  put  into  words  what 


Dr.  Johnson.     •  93 

he  supposed   to  be   the  popular  opinion 
of  the  dictionary-maker  :— 

"  Lexicographer :  A  writer  of  dictionaries,  a 
harmless  drudge  that  busies  himself  in  tracing 
the  origin  and  detailing  the  signification  of 
words." 

In  the  first  edition  of  his  Dictionary 
in  two  huge  folio  volumes  are  to  be 
found  queer  and  obsolete  terms,  and 
such  odd  explanations  as  that  under  the 
word  Network, — "  Anything  reticulated  or 
decussated,  at  equal  distances,  with  in- 
terstices between  the  intersections." 

Carlyle  has,  with  his  customary  vigour 
and  fidelity,  given  us  his  estimate  of 
Johnson's  great  knowledge  of  mankind, 
and  his  skilful  analysis  of  individual 
character,  when  he  writes : — 

"Few  men  have  seen  more  clearly  into  the 
motives,  the  interests,  the  whole  walk  and  con- 
versation of  the  living  busy  world  as  it  lay  before 
him.  And  to  estimate  the  quantity  of  work  that 
Johnson  has  performed,  how  much  poorer  the 
world  were  had  it  wanted  him,  can,  as  in  all  such 
cases,  never  be  accurately  done  ;  cannot,  till  after 
some  longer  space,  be  approximately  done.  All 
work  is  a  seed  sown  ;  it  grows  and  spreads,  and 


94  The  Story  of  Some  Famous  Books. 

sows  itself  anew,  and  so,  in  endless  palingenesia, 
lives  and  works.  To  Johnson's  writings,  good  and 
solid,  and  still  profitable  as  they  are,  we  have 
rated  his  life  and  conversation  as  superior.  By 
the  one  and  by  the  other,  who  shall  compute  what 
effects  have  been  produced,  and  are  still,  and  into 
deep  time,  producing  ?  " 

His  sagacious  words  and  suggestions 
are  likely  to  last  with  the  literature  of  the 
language,  for  they  embody  great  living 
truths  and  principles  which  are  and  must 
continue  superior  to  the  changes  which 
affect  and  rule  in  the  minor  affairs  of 
life. 

Johnson — who  did  so  much  to  lift  up 
and  dignify  the  literary  profession — 
insisted  that  "the  chief  glory  of  every 
people  arises  from  its  authors."  And  he 
yet  somewhere  puts  the  strange  inquiry, — 
Was  there  ever  anything  written  by  mere 
man,  that  was  wished  longer  by  its  readers, 
excepting  Don  Quixote,  Robinson  Crusoe, 
and  the  Pilgrim's  Progress?  If  these 
were  his  pet  books,  yet  he  was  an  omni- 
vorous devourer  of  all  sorts  of  books 
himself. 

Among  the  uses  of  biographies  of  dis- 
tinguished persons  is  that  they  occasionally 


Gray.  9  5 

furnish  to  us  glimpses  of  their  domestic 
habits  and  characteristic  pursuits.  We 
are  interested  in  even  the  minor  incidents 
of  their  lives,  for  these  often  contribute 
to  make  up  the  psychological  sketch. 
It  is  when  thus  admitted  to  a  private  view 
of  their  home-life  that  we  are  enabled 
to  form  a  just  estimate  of  their  character. 
It  is  the  small  talk  and  gossip  of  Boswell's 
•Ltfe  of  Johnson  that  is  its  charm,  and 
that  constitutes  it  such  a  universal 
favourite.  Boswell  has  so  industriously 
collected  the  foolish  as  well  as  the  wise 
observations  of  the  great  lexicographer, 
portrayed  his  asperities  as  well  as  his 
amenities,  his  eccentricities  as  well  as 
excellences,  so  faithfully,  that  we  are  at 
no  loss  to  estimate  his  character.  Let 
who  will  question  the  accuracy  of  taste 
discovered  in  such  minute  disclosures, 
it  cannot  be  denied  that  they  are  the 
very  details  essential  to  a  true  portrait. 

Gray,  who,  it  has  been  said,  was 
"  saturated  with  the  finest  essence  of 
the  Attic  muse,"  wrote  his  famous  Ode, 
founded  upon  the  Welsh  tradition  that 
when  Edward  I.  conquered  the  Princi- 


96  The  Story  of  Some  Famous  Books. 

pality,  he  ordered  the  bards  to  be  put 
to  death. 

Of  Gray's  Elegy  it  is  related  that 
General  Wolfe,  on  the  evening  preced- 
ing the  memorable  battle  of  the  Plains 
of  Abraham,  repeated  the  noble  and 
seemingly  prophetic  line — 

"  The  paths  of  glory  lead  but  to  the  grave  !  " 

to  his  brother  officers,  adding :  "  Now, 
gentlemen,  I  would  rather  be  author  of 
that  poem  than  take  Quebec ! "  There 
are  two  manuscripts  of  the  Elegy  in  exist- 
ence ;  one  containing  five  stanzas  which  the 
author  never  inserted  in  the  published  edi- 
tions. Gray,  with  a  friend,  once  saw  an 
elegant  book-case  filled  with  a  choice 
collection  of  French  classics,  handsomely 
bound,  the  price  of  which  was  one 
hundred  guineas.  He  expressed  a  strong 
desire  for  this  lot,  but  could  not  then 
afford  to  buy  it.  The  conversation 
between  the  poet  and  his  friend  being 
overheard  by  the  Duchess  of  Northumber- 
land, who  was  acquainted  with  the  latter, 
she  took  the  opportunity  of  ascertaining 
who  his  friend  was.  Upon  finding  that  it 


"  Gray's  Elegy"  97 

was  Gray  the  poet,  she  at  once  bought  the 
bookcase,  with  its  contents,  and  sent  it  to 
his  lodgings,  with  a  note,  importing  that 
she  was — 

"ashamed  of  sending  so  small  an  acknowledg- 
ment for  the  infinite  pleasure  she  had  received  in 
reading  the  Elegy  in  a  Country  Chiirchyard,  of 
all  others  her  most  favourite  poem." 

That  oft-quoted  couplet — 

"Where  ignorance  is  bliss, 
'Tis  folly  to  be  wise," 

we  derive  from  his  Ode  to  Eton  College. 

Gray  began  his  Elegy  soon  after  the 
death  of  his  friend  Richard  West,  about 
1742  ;  it  is  supposed  the  event  prompted 
the  poem.  It  was  laid  aside,  however, 
for  nearly  seven  years,  and  in  1750  was 
resumed,  when  the  poet  thus  referred 
to  the  circumstance  in  his  letter  to 
Walpole : — 

"  I  have  been  here  at  Stoke  a  few  days  (where 
I  shall  continue  good  part  of  the  summer),  and 
having  put  an  end  to  a  thing  whose  beginning 
you  have  seen  long  ago,  I  immediately  send  it 
you.  You  will,  I  hope,  look  upon  it  in  the  light 
of  a  thing  with  an  end  to  it, — a  merit  that  most 
of  my  writings  have  wanted,  and  are  like  to 
want." 

7 


98  The  Story  of  Some  Famous  Books. 

The  Elegy  was  much  handed  about 
in  manuscript,  and,  like  Coleridge's 
Christabel,  in  that  condition  gained  con- 
siderable celebrity.  In  1751  it  was 
ascertained  that  it  was  likely  to  be  pub- 
lished without  his  consent,  and  Gray 
desired  Walpole  to  place  his  copy  in 
Dodsley's  hands,  to  be  printed  and 
published,  with  this  direction  : — 

"  Print  it  without  any  interval  between  the 
stanzas,  because  the  sense  is,  in  some  places, 
continued  beyond  them ;  and  the  title  must  be 
Elegy  Written  in  a  Country  Churchyard.  If 
he  would  add  a  line  or  two,  to  say  it  came  into 
his  hands  by  accident,  I  should  like  it  better." 

It  has  not  been  ascertained  how  long 
Gray  was  engaged  upon  the  structure  of 
the  Elegy,  although  he  is  known  to  have 
made  frequent  revisions  and  alterations  of 
it.  The  actual  locality  of  its  composition 
is,  we  believe,  as  yet  undetermined ;  there 
is  a  tradition  that  it  was  within  the  pre- 
cincts of  the  church  of  Granchester,  about 
two  miles  from  Cambridge ;  and  the 
"  curfew  "  is  supposed  to  have  been  the 
great  bell  of  St.  Mary's. 

It  would  be  superfluous  to  speak  of  the 


Campbell's  " Hohenlinden"     99 

merits  of  this  matchless  poem,  its  world- 
wide popularity  evinces  how  universally  it 
charms  and  impresses  the  reader.  It  has 
been  translated  into  Hebrew,  Greek,  Latin, 
French,  Italian,  Portuguese,  German,  and 
reprinted  more  frequently  in  the  original 
than  almost  any  other  production  of  its 
class. 

Campbell's  Pleasures  of  Ifope,  written 
in  1799,  when  its  author  was  only  twenty- 
two  years  of  age,  is  mainly  indebted  to  its 
beautiful  episodes  for  its  protracted  popu- 
larity. His  Jfchenlinden,  by  some  con- 
sidered his  finest  lyric,  was  yet  rejected  by 
a  sapient  editor  of  Greenock,  and  even  the 
poet  himself  would  not  admit  its  merit. 

Campbell  in  a  letter  thus  refers  to  the 
impressions  he  received  of  the  battle  of 
Hohenlinden,  upon  which  his  splendid  lyric 
was  founded  : — 

"  Never  shall  time  efface  from  my  memory  the 
recollection  of  that  hour  of  astonishment  and 
suspended  breath,  when  I  stood  with  the  good 
monks  of  St.  Jacob,  to  overlook  a  charge  of 
Klenau's  cavalry  upon  the  French  under  Grenier, 
encamped  below  us.  We  saw  the  fire  given  and 
returned,  and  heard  distinctly  the  sound  of  the 
French  pas  de  charge,  collecting  the  lines  to  attack 


I  oo  The  Story  of  Some  Famous  Books. 

in  close  column.  After  three  hours  awaiting  the 
issue  of  a  severe  action,  a  park  of  artillery  was 
opened  just  beneath  the  walls  of  the  monastery,  and 
several  waggoners,  who  were  stationed  to  convey 
the  wounded  in  spring  waggons,  were  killed  in  our 
sight.  My  love  of  novelty  now  gave  way  to  per- 
sonal fear  ;  and  I  took  a  carriage,  in  company  with 
an  Austrian  surgeon,  back  to  Landshut.  I  re- 
member," he  adds,  on  his  return  to  England, 
' '  how  little  I  valued  the  art  of  painting  before  I 
got  into  the  heart  of  such  impressive  scenes  ;  but 
in  Germany  I  would  have  given  anything  to  have 
possessed  an  art  capable  of  conveying  ideas  in- 
accessible to  speech  and  writing.  Some  particular 
scenes  were  rather  overcharged  with  that  degree  of 
the  terrific  which  oversteps  the  sublime ;  and  I 
own  my  flesh  yet  creeps  at  the  recollection  of 
spring  waggons  and  hospitals ;  but  the  sight  of 
Ingoldstadt  in  rains,  or  Hphenlinden  covered  with 
fire  seven  miles  in  circumference,  were  spectacles 
never  to  be  forgotten. " 

It  is  related  of  Campbell  that  shortly 
before  his  death  he  read  before  the  as- 
semblage at  the  opening  of  the  Exhibition 
in  Suffolk  Place,  London,  that  grand  piece 
the  Thanatopsis  of  Bryant,  and  broke 
down  with  emotion  when  he  came  to  the 
lines — 

"  So  live,  that  when  thy  summons  comes  to  join 
The  innumerable  caravan  that  moves 


Campbell.  i  o  I 

To  the  pale  realms  of  shade,  where  each  shall 

take 

His  chamber  in  the  silent  halls  of  Death, 
Thou  go  not  like  the  quarry-slave,  at  night 
Scourged  to  his  dungeon,"  etc.  ; — 

saying  that  nothing  finer  had  ever  been 
written. 

The  oft-cited  line  of  Campbell — 
"Like  angel-visits,  few  and  far  between," 

has  been  traced  back  to  Norris  of  Bemer- 
ton  ;  it  occurs  in  the  following  beautiful 
stanza : — 

"  How  fading  are  the  joys  we  dote  upon  ; 
Like  apparitions  seen  and  gone  ; 
But  those  who  soonest  take  their  flight, 
Are  the  most  exquisite  and  strong, — 
Like  angel-visits  short  and  bright, — 
Mortality's  too  weak  to  bear  them  long." 

The  comparison  of  human  joys  to  the 
visits  of  angels,  after  having  been  engrafted 
into  the  Grave  of  Blair,  was  transferred 
by  Campbell  to  his  Pleasures  of  Hope,  and 
has  long  since  passed  into  a  poetic 
proverb. 


V. 


GOLDSMITH.  —  COWPER.  —  BURNS.  — 
STERNE. — RICHARDSON. — FIELDING. — 
SMOLLETT. — BECKFORD'S  "  VATHEK." — 
WORDSWORTH.  —  SCOTT.  — COLERIDGE. 

— AUDUBON.  — Wl  LSON. 


NTIL  comparatively  recent  times 
it  was  supposed  that  Goldsmith's 
Vicar  of  Wakefield  was  suggested 
by  an  anonymous  work  entitled  The  Journal 
of  a  Wiltshire  Curate,  but  the  former  hav- 
ing been  published  in  March  1766,  and 
the  latter  not  appearing  in  print  until  the 
following  December ;  and  further,  Gold- 
smith having  written  other  papers  in  the 
British  Magazine,  in  which  both  works 
appeared,  the  supposition  of  plagiarism,  of 
course,  ceases  to  be  possible. 

The  ballad  of  Edwin  and  Angelina  was 
originally  written  and  privately  printed  for 
the  amusement  of  the  Countess  of  North- 


"  Vicar  of  Wakefield"      103 

umberland,  and  was  afterwards  inserted  in 
the  Vicar  of  Wakefield. 

The  Vicar  of  Wakefield  was  much  ad- 
mired by  Moore,  who  read  it  to  his  wife ; 
and  Scott  tells  us  he  returned  to  it  again 
and  again,  and  blessed  the  memory  of  its 
author.  Carlyle  designates  it  "the  best 
of  modern  idyls  ;  "  and  Goethe  declared 
in  his  eighty-first  year  that  the  Vicar  of 
Wakefield  was  his  delight  at  the  age  of 
twenty,  and  that  he  had  recently  read  it 
again,  with  a  renewed  delight,  and  with  a 
grateful  sense  of  the  early  benefit  he  had 
derived  from  it. 

While  engaged  with  Newberry  the 
publisher,  Goldsmith  lodged  with  a  Mrs 
Fleming,  and  it  was  in  her  lodgings  that 
being  pressed  either  to  pay  his  bill  or 
to  marry  his  landlady,  Goldsmith  applied 
to  Dr.  Johnson.  On  that  occasion  the 
manuscript  of  the  Vicar  of  Wakefield  was 
produced ;  and  Johnson  was  so  much 
pleased  with  it  that  he  obtained  sixty 
pounds  for  the  work,  and  thus  rescued  its 
poor  author  from  the  embarrassed  situation 
in  which  he  was  placed  by  Mrs.  Fleming. 
This  incident  is  all  the  more  interesting 


104  The  Story  of  Some  Famous  Books. 

since  from  such  a  seeming  accident  should 
have  sprung  one  of  the  most  cherished  of 
the  literary  gems  of  our  language. 

Goldsmith  composed  his  Deserted  Village 
whilst  staying  at  a  farmhouse  nearly  oppo- 
site the  church  at  Springfield,  Essex.  The 
village,  which  he  calls  Auburn,  was  Ltssoy, 
where  in  his  youth  every  spot  was  familiar 
to  him,  as  well  as  the  places  and  also 
characters  then  living  there,  and  whom 
he  has  sketched  in  the  poem.  The 
schoolmaster  was  a  sketch  from  life,  one 
Paddy  Burn,  a  man  "  severe  to  view ; " 
and  so  was  the  keeper  of  the  alehouse 
where 

"  Imagination  fondly  stoops  to  trace 
The  parlour  splendours  of  that  festive  place." 

Every  one  knows  Boswell's  carefully- 
worded  account  of  the  romantic  circum- 
stances in  which  Johnson  relieved  Gold- 
smith's distress  by  selling  the  manuscript 
of  his  novel  to  some  unnamed  bookseller 
for  ;£6o.  Boswell's  story  is  professedly 
Johnson's  "  own  exact  version,"  and 
corrects  what  he  calls  the  "  strangely  mis- 
stated "  facts  of  Mrs.  Thrale  and  Sir  John 


"  Vicar  of  Wakefield."       105 

Hawkins.  With  these  varying  accounts 
Mr.  Austin  Dobson  collates  that  of  Richard 
Cumberland,  and  observes,  in  conclusion  : 
"  Boswell's  story  alone  wears  an  air  of 
veracity,  and  it  has  generally  been  regarded 
as  the  accepted  version.1"  The  novel  was 
published  March  27th,  1766,  and  was 
advertised  in  the  Public  Advertiser  of  the 
same  date,  together  with  The  Traveller, 
which  was  published  in  1764. 

Mr.  Dobson  has  discovered  that  as  far 
back  as  October  28th,  1762,  Collins,  the 
Salisbury  printer,  had  purchased  of  "  Dr. 
Goldsmith,  the  Author,"  for  £21  a  third 
share  in  The  Vicar  of  Wakefield.  This 
interesting  fact  is  disclosed  by  an  old  ac- 
count book,  once  belonging  to  Collins,  and 
now  in  possession  of  Mr.  Charles  Welsh, 
a  member  of  the  firm  of  publishers  suc- 
cessors to  John  Newberry.-  Several  curious 
items  connected  with  the  sale  of  the  novel 
are  communicated  by  Mr.  Welsh.  .  It 
appears  from  the  memoranda  of  Collins 
that  the  fourth  edition  started  with  a  loss, 
and  Collins  sold  his  third  share  for  five 
guineas. 

"  The  impression  has  been  general   that   this 


1 06  TJie  Story  of  Some  Famous  Books. 

immortal  work  enjoyed  a  brisk  sale,  at  least  in  the 
early  editions,  and  that  the  original  purchaser  de- 
layed its  publication  for  some  fifteen  months.  The 
strange  truth  is  now  revealed  that  for  more  than 
three  years  did  its  three  owners  agree  to  keep  it 
from  the  light,  and  that  one  of  them  was  so  hopeless 
of  its  permanent  value  that  he  sold  his  share  for  a 
paltry  sum  four  years  after  its  publication."  ' 

An  amusing  adventure  which  occurred 
in  Goldsmith's  last  journey  from  his  home 
to  Edgeworthstown  school  is  believed  to 
have  given  birth  to  the  chief  incidents  in 
the  drama  of  She  Stoops  to  Conquer.  Hav- 
ing set  off  on  horseback  (a  friend  having 
given  him  a  guinea),  he,  schoolboy-like, 
thought  he  would  play  the  gentleman,  and 
meeting  a  person  on  his  road,  inquired  for 
the  best  inn.  His  informant,  being  dis- 
posed to  a  practical  joke,  directed  him  to 
the  house  of  the  wealthiest  personage  of 
the  place.  Not  suspecting  any  deception, 
Oliver  proceeded  as  directed,  and  on 
reaching  the  mansion  gave  directions 
about  his  horse.  He  was  ushered  into  the 
presence  of  the  squire,  who  at  once  de- 
tected the  mistake.  Being  himself  fond 
of  a  joke,  he  encouraged  the  lad  in  his 
1  Saturday  Review. 


Goldsmith.  107 

mistake,  and  at  length  found  by  the  relation 
of  his  history  that  Goldsmith's  father  was 
not  unknown  to  him.  Nothing  occurred  to 
undeceive  the  self-important  youth  until 
he  had  dined  with  the  family  circle,  and 
on  the  following  morning  when  he  was 
about  to  take  his  departure,  on  offering  to 
pay  for  his  entertainment  he  discovered 
his  mistake. 

Sir  Joshua  Reynolds  relates  an  anecdote 
of  Goldsmith,  while  engaged  upon  his 
poem,  which  may  be  worth  repeating. 
Calling  upon  the  poet,  he  opened  the 
door  without  ceremony,  and  found  him  in 
the  double  occupation  of  turning  a  couplet 
and  teaching  a  pet  dog  to  stand  upon  his 
haunches.  At  one  moment  he  would 
glance  his  eye  at  the  desk  and  at  another 
shake  his  finger  at  the  dog  to  make  him 
retain  his  position.  The  last  lines  on  the 
page  were  still  wet  (they  form  a  part  of  the 
description  of  Italy),  and  are  these  : — 

"  By  sports  like  these  are  all  their  cares  beguiled  ; 
The  sports  of  children  satisfy  the  child." 

A  literary  friend  once  recommended 
Goldsmith  to  employ  an  amanuensis,  and 
thereby  escape  the  labour  of  writing  his 


io8  The  Story  of  Some  Famous  Books. 

MS.,  and  he  tried  the  experiment.  He  made 
an  arrangement  for  the  scribe's  attend- 
ance, but,  after  pacing  up  and  down  the 
room,  and  "  racking  his  brains "  to  no 
purpose,  he  put  the  fee  into  the  hand  of 
his  amanuensis,  saying,  "  It  won't  do,  my 
friend ;  I  find  that  my  head  and  my  hand 
must  work  together." 

The  origin  of  Cowper's  comic  ballad 
oi  John  Gilpin  is  well  known,  but  may 
be  repeated  here.  It  happened  one 
afternoon  in  those  years  when  Cowper's 
accomplished  friend,  Lady  Austen,  made 
a  part  of  his  little  social  circle,  that  she 
observed  him  looking  very  dejected,  when 
she  told  him  the  story  of  John  Gilpin, 
which  she  remembered  from  childhood. 
Its  effect  on  the  poet  was  like  an  enchant- 
ment. He  informed  Lady  Austen  on  the 
following  morning  that  the  recollection  of 
her  story  had  so  captivated  him  that  he 
had  during  the  night  turned  it  into  a  ballad. 
Of  this  ballad,  which  had,  soon  after  its 
publication,  become  the  popular  talk  of 
the  day,  and  had  been  read  to  crowded 
houses  in  theatres,  Cowper  thus  speaks 
in  after  days  : — "  The  grinners  at  John 


Cowper.  1 09 

Gilpin  little  dream  what  the  author  some- 
times suffers.  How  I  hated  myself  yester- 
day for  ever  having  wrote  it."  To  his 
friend  Lady  Austen  Cowper  was  indebted 
for  the  suggestion  of  the  greatest  of  his 
productions,  The  Task. 

Who  has  not  read  Cowper's  touching 
lines  on  "The  Receipt  of  his  Mother's 
Picture  "  ?  The  occasion  was  the  receipt 
of  his  mother's  portrait  from  his  cousin, 
and  in  a  letter  to  that  lady  he  uses  the 
following  words  : — 

"  The  world  could  not  have  furnished  you  with 
a  present  so  acceptable  to  me  as  the  picture  which 
you  have  so  kindly  sent  me.  I  received  it  the 
night  before  last,  and  viewed  it  with  a  trepidation 
of  nerves  and  spirits  somewhat  akin  to  what  I 
should  have  felt  had  the  dear  original  presented 
herself  to  my  embraces.  I  kissed  it  and  hung  it 
where  it  is  the  last  object  that  I  see  at  night,  and, 
of  course,  the  first  on  which  I  open  my  eyes  in  the 
morning. " 

"  It  is  incorrect  to  say  that  Cowper's  malady 
was  religious  mania  ;  on  the  contrary,  to  his  strong 
religious  sentiment  was  due  the  consolation  of 
many  an  hour,  lightening  its  darkness  and  cheer- 
ing its  sorrow,  standing  as  a  guardian  angel 
between  him  and  the  cell  of  the  raging  lunatic  and 


1 1 0  The  Story  of  Some  Famous  Books. 

the  suicide's  grave.  And  so  let  us  leave  him,  with 
his  own  words  still  fresh  in  our  memory  :  '  Such 
was  the  goodness  of  the  Lord,  that  He  gave  me 
the  oil  of  joy  for  mourning,  and  the  garments  of 
praise  for  the  spirit  of  heaviness.'  The  claim  of 
Cowper  to  be  considered  a  poet  of  great  excellence 
has  been  long  and  indisputably  established ;  and 
he  may  be  considered,  like  Goldsmith,  as  a  pre- 
cursor of  that  style  of  poetry  which  appeals  to  the 
great  interests  of  humanity  in  a  rational,  philo- 
sophical spirit.  His  pictures  of  social  life  are  as 
truthful  as  they  are  charming." l 

To  the  poet  of  the  domestic  virtues, 
Cowper,  are  we  indebted  for  having 
brought  the  Muse,  in  her  most  attractive 
guise,  to  sit  down  by  our  hearths,  and 
breathe  a  sanctity  over  the  daily  economy 
of  human  life.  His  poetry  influences  the 
feelings  as  a  summer  day  affects  the  body, 
imparting  to  the  mind  a  sense  of  calm 
enjoyment  and  happiness. 

"  I  would  forgive  a  man  for  not  reading  Milton," 
once  said  Charles  Lamb,  "but  I  would  not  call 
that  man  my  friend  who  should  be  offended  with 
the  divine  chit-chat  of  Cowper." 

He  wrote  pieces  which  have  given  con- 
solation to  all  classes  of  Christians,  yet 

1  Waller's  Bos-well. 


Cowper.  Ill 

he  himself  took  no  comfort  from  them. 
His  last  piece,  The  Castaway,  which  shows 
no  decay  of  mental  power,  though  he  was 
then  in  his  seventieth  year,  is  among  the 
most  touching  poems  in  any  language. 
He  had  been  reading  in  Anson's  Voyages 
an  account  of  a  man  lost  overboard  in  a 
gale. 

A  curious  illustration  of  erratic  criticism 
may  be  seen  in  the  case  of  Cowper's  Poems. 
A  portion  of  his  poems  was  offered  in 
manuscript  to  Johnson,  the  publisher,  on 
conditions  that  he  should  assume  the  risk 
of  publication. 

"The  publisher  read  the  MSS.,  approved  of 
them,  and  published  them  in  a  volume.  But  the 
erudite  critics  condemned  the  work  as  utterly 
devoid  of  merit,  and  nearly  the  whole  edition 
remained  unsold.  After  a  year  or  more  a  relative 
of  the  poet  called  again  upon  the  publisher  with 
another  batch  of  manuscripts,  which  he  offered  on 
the  same  terms,  and  they  were  accepted  as  before. 
This  was  the  MS.  of  The  Task;  and  no  sooner 
did  this  volume  make  its  appearance  than  the 
reviewers  hailed  Cowper  as  the  first  poet  of  the 
age,  and  this  success  set  the  first  work  in  motion. 
Johnson,  his  publisher,  was  courageous  and  of 
good  critical  judgment,  wiser  than  his  first  censors, 
and  he  reaped  his  reward,  for  it  is  estimated  that 


112  The  Story  of  Some  Famous  Books. 

in  two  years  the  copyright  of  Cowper's  poems 
produced  the  then  large  sum  of  six  thousand  seven 
hundred  and  sixty-four  pounds  !  "  * 

Cowper  is  less  read  than  he  deserves  to 
be,  but  he  has  this  glory,  that  he  has  ever 
been  the  favourite  poet  of  deeply  religious 
minds  ;  and  his  history  is  peculiarly  touch- 
ing, as  that  of  one  who,  himself  plunged 
in  despair  and  madness,  has  brought  hope 
and  consolation  to  a  thousand  other  souls. 

"  O  poets,  from  a  maniac's  tongue  was  poured  the 

deathless  singing  ; 
O  Christians,  to  your  cross  of  hope  a  hopeless 

hand  was  clinging  ; 
O  men,  this  man  in  brotherhood  your  weary 

hearts  beguiling, 
Groaned  inly  while  he  gave  you  peace,  and  died 

while  ye  were  smiling. 

He  shall  be  strong  to  sanctify  the  poet's  high 

vocation ; 
And  bow  the  meekest  Christian  down  in  meeker 

adoration ; 
Nor  ever  shall  he  be  in  love  by  wise  and  good 

forsaken — 
Named  softly  as  the  household   name  of  one 

whom  God  hath  taken  ! "  * 

While  the   sweet  melodies  of  Cowper 
1  Timbs.  z  Canon  Farrar. 


Burns.  113 

were  filling  hearts  and  homes  with  their 
music,  a  rustic  peasant  of  Scotia  was  tuning 
his  reed  to  "A  Mountain  Daisy,"  or  chanting 
his  love-plaints  to  some  fairy-footed  nymph 
beside  some  Scottish  stream.  It  is  not  an 
easy  thing  to  find  out  the  sources  of  his 
inspiration ;  for  the  most  part  they  were, 
doubtless,  his  love  of  nature  and  of  his 
fair  friends.  Burns  was  little  more  than 
sixteen  years  old  when  he  wrote  some  of 
his  most  remarkable  lyrics ;  and  the  brief 
limit  of  thirty-seven  years  made  up  the 
short  span  of  the  poet's  life, — a  life  so 
prolific  of  pleasure  to  the  world,  yet  so 
checkered  and  unpropitious  to  himself. 

One  of  Burns's  most  pathetic  of  lyrics  is 
that  entitled  "  To  Mary  in  Heaven  "  : — 

"  Thou  ling'ring  star,  with  less'ning  ray, 
That  lov'st  to  greet  the  early  morn, 
Again  thou  usher'st  in  the  day 
My  Mary  from  my  soul  was  torn. 
O  Mary  !  dear  departed  shade  ! 
Where  is  thy  place  of  blissful  rest  ? 
See'st  thou  thy  lover  lowly  laid  ? 
Hear'st  thou  the  groans  that  rend  his  breast?" 

The  poet  and  his  rustic  maiden  met  for 
the  last  time  in  a  sequestered  spot  on  the 

8 


114  The  Story  of  Some  Famous  Books. 

banks  of  the  Ayr.  Standing  on  either  side 
of  a  purling  brook,  and  holding  a  Bible 
between  them,  they  exchanged  their 
plighted  vows.  Mary  presented  her  Bible 
to  the  poet,  and  he  gave  her  his.  This 
Bible  has  been  preserved,  and  on  a  blank 
leaf,  in  Burns's  handwriting,  is  inscribed, 
"  And  ye  shall  not  swear  by  My  name 
falsely ;  I  am  the  Lord,"  and  on  another 
blank  leaf  his  name  is  written.  The  lovers 
never  met  again,  Mary  having  died  sud- 
denly at  Greenock ;  and  over  her  grave 
a  monument  has  been  erected.  On  the 
third  anniversary  of  her  death,  Jean 
Armour,  then  his  wife,  noticed  that  to- 
wards evening 

"he  grew  sad  about  something,  went  into  the 
barnyard,  where  he  strode  restlessly  up  and  down 
for  some  time,  although  repeatedly  asked  to  come 
in.  Immediately  on  entering  the  house,  he  sat 
down  and  wrote  this  touching  poem,  which 
Lockhart  characterises  as  'the  noblest  of  all  his 
ballads.'  " 

Gilbert  Burns  gives  the  following  ac- 
count of  the  origin  of  "  The  Cotter's  Satur- 
day Night " : — 

"  Robert  had  frequently  remarked   to  me,"  he 


Burns.'  1 1 5 

says,  "that  he  thought  there  was  something  pecu- 
liarly venerable  in  the  phrase,  '  Let  us  worship 
God,'  used  by  a  head  of  a  family,  introducing 
family  worship.  To  this  sentiment  of  the  author 
the  world  is  indebted  for  this  poem.  We  used 
frequently  to  walk  together  on  Sunday  afternoons  ; 
and  it  was  on  one  of  these  occasions  that  I  first 
had  the  pleasure  of  hearing  the  author  repeat '  The 
Cotter's  Saturday  Night.'  The  'Cotter'  is  an 
exact  copy  of  my  father  in  his  manners,  and  yet 
the  other  parts  of  the  description  do  not  apply  to 
our  family." 

Burns  wrote  his  famous  "  Tarn  O'Shan- 
ter"  almost  impromptu,  for  he  is  said  to 
have  composed  it  in  a  single  day.  The 
poet  was  lingering  by  the  river-side  a  long 
time,  and  his  wife  and  children  went  out  to 
join  him  ;  but  perceiving  that  her  presence 
was  an  interruption  to  him,  she  retired 
from  him.  Her  attention  was,  however, 
attracted  by  his  wild  gesticulations  and 
ungovernable  mirth  while  he  was  reciting 
the  passages  of  the  poem  as  they  arose  in 
his  mind.  The  piece  was  suggested  by  a 
Scottish  legend,  which  the  poet  gives  in 
one  of  his  letters  to  his  friend  Captain 
Grose  ;  and  the  name  was  derived  from 
an  incident  in  the  life  of  Douglas  Grahame 


1 1 6  The  Story  of  Some  Famous  Books. 

of  Shanter,  a  farmer  on  the  Carrick  shore, 
who  was,  it  seems,  addicted  to  libations 
deep. 

"  Should  auld  acquaintance  be  forgot," 
or,  as  its  title  reads,  "  Auld  Lang  Syne," 
was  described  by  Burns  as  being — 

"an  old  song  and  tune  which  had  often  thrilled 
through  his  soul  ;  and  he  professed  to  his  friend 
Thomson  to  have  received  it  from  an  old  man's 
singing,  and  exclaimed  regarding  it,  '  Light  be  the 
turf  on  the  breast  of  the  Heaven-inspired  poet 
who  composed  this  glorious  fragment. ' " 

The  second  and  third  verses,  however, 
are  known  to  be  his  own. 

Among  the  books  which  took  the 
strongest  hold  on  the  imagination  of 
Burns  were  two  which  filled  him  with  a 
desire  to  become  a  soldier ;  these  were  a 
Life  of  Hannibal  and  a  Life  of  Wallace  ; 
and  doubtless  to  the  study  of  the  latter 
may  be  attributed  his  noble  lyric,  "  Scots 
wha  hae  wi'  Wallace  bled." 

With  regard  to  the  origin  of  this  stirring 
lyric,  which  he  entitles  "  Bannockburn," 
we  have  the  poet's  own  words  as  follows  : — 

"There  is  a  tradition,  which  I  have  met  with 
in  many  places  of  Scotland,  that  it  was  Robert 


Burns.  1 1 7 

Bruce 's  march,  at  the  battle  of  Bannockbum  ;  and 
I  do  not  know  whether  it  was  the  old  air,  '  Hey 
tullie,  tailie,'  but  well  I  know  that  with  Frazer's 
hautboy,  it  has  often  filled  my  eyes  with  tears. 
This  thought,  in  my  solitary  wanderings,  warmed 
to  a  pitch  of  enthusiasm  on  the  theme  of  liberty 
and  independence,  which  I  threw  into  a  kind  of 
Scottish  ode,  fitted  to  the  air  that  one  might  sup- 
pose to  be  the  gallant  Royal  Scot's  address  to  his 
heroic  followers,  on  that  eventful  morning." 

The  verses  "  To  a  Mouse,"  and  those 
"To  a  Mountain  Daisy,"  were  composed 
while  their  author  was  holding  the  plough. 
Holding  the  plough  was  Burns's  best  time, 
it  is  stated,  for  poetic  inspiration — as, 
indeed,  some  of  his  best  poems  prove. 
The  field  on  the  farm  of  Mossgiel  is 
still  pointed  out  and  visited  as  the  scene 
of  many  of  the  productions  of  the  great 
Scottish  peasant-poet. 

Burns  tells  us  that  he  never  feared  an 
enemy  or  failed  a  friend,  and  that  "  for 
the  rest,"  he  adds  : — 

"  I  have  written  my  heart  in  my  poems  ;  and 
rude  and  unfinished  and  hasty  as  they  are,  it  can 
be  read  there.  From  seven  years  of  age  to  this 
very  hour,  I  have  been  dependent  only  on  my  own 
head  and  hands  for  everything — for  very  bread. 
But  I  thank  God  that  though  I  felt  sad  suffering, 


1 1 8  The  Story  of  Some  Famous  Books. 

the  scathing  blast  neither  blunted  my  perceptions 
of  natural  and  moral  beauty,  nor,  by  withering  the 
affections  of  my  heart,  made  me  a  selfish  man." 

His  beautiful,  brief  lyric,  "  Ae  fond 
kiss,"  was  the  tribute  of  the  poet's  brain  and 
heart  to  his  Clarinda ;  everyone  admires 
the  little  poetic  gem,  it  is  so  natural  an 
outburst  of  affection.  The  poets  have 
acknowledged  its  beauty ;  Byron  and 
Scott,  as  well  as  Mrs.  Anna  Jameson,  are 
among  its  admirers. 

"  It  is  a  remarkable  fact,  that  the  mass  of  the 
poetry  which  has  given  this  extraordinary  man  his 
principal  fame,  burst  from  him  in  a  comparatively 
small  space  of  time,  not  exceeding  fifteen  months. 
It  began  to  flow  of  a  sudden,  and  it  ran  into  one  im- 
petuous, brilliant  stream,  till  it  seemed  to  have 
become  comparatively  exhausted. " ' 

Carlyle  regarded  Burns's  songs  as — 

"  by  far  the  best  that  Britain  has  yet  produced. 
Independent  of  the  clear,  manly,  heart-felt  senti- 
ment that  ever  pervades  his  poetry,  his  songs  are 
honest  in  another  point  of  view ;  in  form  as  well 
as  in  spirit.  They  do  not  affect  to  be  set  to  music, 
but  they  actually  and  in  themselves  are  music; 
they  have  received  their  life,  and  fashioned  them- 
selves together,  in  the  medium  of  Harmony,  as 

1  Chambers. 


Burns.  119 

Venus  rose  from  the  bosom  of  the  sea.  If  we 
further  take  into  account  the  immense  variety 
of  his  subjects ;  how  from  the  loud-flowing  revel 
in  'Willie  brew'd  a  peck  o'  Malt,'  to  the  still, 
rapt  enthusiasm  of  sadness  for  '  Mary  in 
Heaven  ;  '  from  the  glad  kind  greeting  of  '  Auld 
Lang  Syne,'  or  the  comic  archness  of  '  Duncan 
Gray,'  to  the  fire-eyed  fury  of  '  Scots  wha  hae 
wi'  Wallace  bled,'  he  has  found  a  tone  and 
words  for  every  mood  of  man's  heart, — it  will  seem 
a  small  praise  if  we  rank  him  as  the  first  of  all  our 
song- writers,  for  we  know  not  where  to  find  one 
worthy  of  being  second  to  him." 

li  Such  graves  as  his  are  pilgrim-shrines,  shrines 

to  no  code  or  creed  confined, — 
The  Delphian  vales,  the  Palestines,  the  Meccas, 

of  the  mind  ! 
They  linger  by  the  Doon's  low  trees,  the  pastoral 

Nith,  the  wooded  Ayr, 
And  round  thy  sepulchres,  Dumfries  !   the  poet's 

tomb  is  there. 
But  what  to  the  sculptor's  art,  his  funeral  columns, 

wreaths,  and  urns  ? 
Wear  they  not  graven  on  the  heart  the  name  of 

Robert  Burns  ?  "  ' 

Gibbon  himself  informs  us  of  the  cir- 
cumstances which  led  to  his  writing  the 
Decline  and  Fall  of  the  Roman  Empire, 
thus : — 

1  Fitz-Greene  Halleck. 


I  2  o  The  Story  of  Some  Famous  Books. 

"  It  was  at  Rome,  as  I  sat  musing  amidst  the 
ruins  of  the  Capitol,  October  I5th,  1764, — while 
the  barefooted  friars  were  singing  vespers  in  the 
temple  of  Jupiter,  that  the  idea  of  writing  the  de- 
cline and  fall  of  the  city  first  started  to  my  mind. 
It  was  on  the  day,  or  rather  night,  of  the  27th  June, 
1787,  between  the  hours  of  eleven  and  twelve 
o'clock,  that  I  wrote  the  last  lines  of  the  last  page, 
in  a  summer-house  in  my  garden. " 

He  continues  : — 

' '  I  will  add  two  facts  which  have  seldom  occurred 
in  composition  of  six,  or  at  least  five  quartos,  — my 
first  rough  manuscript,  without  any  intermediate 
copy,  has  been  sent  to  the  press  ;  second,  not  a 
sheet  has  been  seen  by  any  human  eye,  except 
those  of  the  author  and  the  printer, — the  faults 
and  merits  are  exclusively  my  own." 

Gibbon  tells  us  of  his  History  : — 

"  At  the  outset,  all  was  dark  and  doubtful, — even 
the  title  of  the  work,  the  true  era  of  the  decline 
and  fall  of  the  Empire,  the  limits  of  the  introduc- 
tion, the  division  of  the  chapters  and  the  order  of 
the  narration  :  and  I  was  often  tempted  to  cast 
away  the  labour  of  seven  years." 

The  memoirs  of  his  life  reveal  to  us  a 
picture  of  his  untiring  industry,  and  per- 
sistent devotion  to  his  great  work,  cover- 
ing a  space  of  nearly  a  score  of  years. 


Sterne.  121 

His  famous  work  was  declined  by 
several  publishers,  and  when  undertaken 
by  Cadell,  only  five  hundred  copies  were 
at  first  printed ;  larger  impressions,  how- 
ever, soon  followed,  in  rapid  succession, 
until,  as  Gibbon  says,  his  book  "  was  on 
every  table  and  almost  every  toilette." 

Tristram  Shandy  was  condemned  by 
Horace  Walpole  as  "a  very  insipid  and 
tedious  performance ; "  yet  this  was 
Sterne's  greatest  work.  Dodsley,  the 
publisher,  gave  him  six  hundred  and 
fifty  pounds  for  the  second  edition  of 
the  work,  and  two  more  volumes ;  and 
Warburton  gave  him  a  purse  of  gold, 
and  styled  him  "  the  English  Rabelais." 
Although  the  work  appeared  anonymously, 
yet  it  was  known  to  be  Sterne's  from 
the  first. 

Of  Sterne's  Sentimental  Journey  there 
is  no  history,  excepting  that  the  author 
wrote  it  from  notes  made  during  two 
journeys  in  France  and  Italy. 

Richardson's  once  popular  novels  were 
suggested  to  him  by  a  brother  bookseller, 
as  an  attractive  vehicle  for  conveying 
ethical  teaching  to  the  subordinate  classes 


122  The  Story  of  Some  Famous  Books, 

of  society,  as  well  as  exhibiting  the  ideal 
characters  of  fiction.  Samuel  Richardson — 
who  has  been  called  the  founder  of  the 
modern  novel — published  in  1741  his 
Pamela,  the  story  of  a  rustic  beauty's 
adventures  and  vicissitudes.  It  originally 
sprang  from  a  collection  of  familiar 
letters,  which  he  designed  as  a  manual 
for  the  improvement  of  the  operative 
classes.  The  popularity  of  this  work  was 
remarkable,  although  this,  like  all 
Richardson's  works,  is  extremely  volu- 
minous. His  greatest  novel  is  Clarissa 
Harlowe^  which  still  is  regarded  as  belong- 
ing to  the  front  rank  of  prose  fiction. 

By  this  work  Richardson,  whom  no- 
body suspected  of  literary  ability,  intro- 
duced a  new  class  or  order  in  the 
literature  of  fiction.  He  is  said  to  have 
written  the  story  in  his  cottage  at  Ham- 
mersmith, during  the  daytime,  and  in  the 
evenings  he  read  portions  of  his  manu- 
script to  a  few  ladies,  whom  he  constituted 
his  censors  on  his  delineations  of  woman's 
ways, — which  to  some  of  us  seem  past 
finding  out. 

The  second  prominent  novelist  of  this 


Smollett.  123 

period  is  Fielding,  who  was  described  by 
Byron  as  "  the  prose  Homer  of  human 
nature."  In  1742  he  produced  his  first 
work,  Joseph  Andrews,  which  was,  it  is 
said,  designed  as  a  humorous  satire  upon 
Pamela.  His  principal  book  was  Tom 
Jones,  which  has  been  considered  one  of 
the  finest  examples  of  its  class  extant 
in  fiction.  Smollett's  Humphrey  Clinker 
is  another  novel  in  the  epistolary  form, 
and  "the  most  cordial,  comic,  and 
laughable  of  them  all." 

In  the  year  1809  was  interred,  in  the 
churchyard  of  St.  Martin's-in-the-Fields, 
the  body  of  one  Hew  Hewson,  who  died 
at  the  age  of  eighty-five.  He  was  the 
original  of  Hugh  Strap,  in  Smollett's 
Roderick  Random.  Upwards  of  forty  years 
he  kept  a  hair-dresser's  shop  in  St.  Martin's 
parish ;  the  walls  were  hung  round  with 
Latin  quotations,  and  he  would  frequently 
point  out  to  his  customers  and  acquaint- 
ances the  several  scenes  in  Roderick 
Random  pertaining  to  himself,  which  had 
their  origin,  not  in  Smollett's  inventive 
fancy,  but  in  truth  and  reality.  The 
meeting  in  a  barber's  shop  at  Newcastle- 


1 24  The  Story  of  Some  Famous  Books, 

upon-Tyne,  the  subsequent  mistake  at 
the  inn,  their  arrival  together  in  London, 
and  the  assistance  they  experienced  from 
Strap's  friend,  are  all  facts.  The  barber 
left  behind  an  annotated  copy  of  Roderick 
Random,  showing  how  far  we  are  in- 
debted to  the  genius  of  the  author,  and 
to  what  extent  the  incidents  are  founded 
in  reality. 

Another  famous  work  is  Beckford's 
Vathek :  An  Arabian  Tale.  This  work, 
which  is  considered  the  finest  of  Oriental 
romances  in  prose,  as  Moore's  Lalla  Rookh 
is  the  first  of  these  in  verse,  was  written 
before  its  author  had  completed  his  twen- 
tieth year,  and  published  in  1784.  For 
accuracy  of  detail,  beauty  of  description, 
and  richly  luxuriant  imagination,  it  sur- 
passed even  Johnson's  Rasselas,  according 
to  the  estimate  of  Byron  and  some  other 
critics.  This  work,  although  its  author 
was  an  Englishman,  was  composed  in 
French, — of  which  its  style  is  a  model, 
— and  afterwards  was  translated.  No  clue 
to  the  origin  of  the  production  seems 
to  exist.  It  may  be  noted  that  Hope's 
celebrated  novel,  Anastasius  ;  or,  Memoirs 


Wordsworth.  125 

of  a  Modern  Greek,  which  Beckford,  it 
is  known,  greatly  admired,  was  not  pub- 
lished until  1819.  He  is  said  to  have 
written  this  remarkable  story  at  a  single 
sitting.  Much  of  the  description  of 
Vathek's  palace,  and  even  the  Hall  of 
Eblis,  was  afterwards  visibly  embodied 
in  the  real  Fonthill  Abbey,  of  which 
wonders  almost  as  fabulous  were  at  one 
time  reported  and  believed.  Fonthill 
Abbey,  which  had  been  destroyed  by 
fire,  cost  the  sum  of  ^£2  7  3,000.  The 
building  was  in  the  Gothic  style,  and  was 
surmounted  by  a  central  tower  of  two 
hundred  and  eighty  feet  in  height.  The 
abbey  was  enriched  with  the  treasures 
of  art  and  vertu,  as  well  as  a  choice 
collection  of  books. 

Wordsworth,  whose  whole  life  was 
devoted  to  his  art,  and  whose  poetry 
was  written  amidst  the  inspiration  of 
mountains  and  meadows,  woodland  lakes 
and  rural  retreats,  must  have  had  few 
cares,  living  as  he  did  at  Grasmere  and 
afterwards  at  Rydal  Mount,  sequestered 
from  the  busy  haunts  of  men. 

Wordsworth,    the    pastoral   and   philo- 


126  The  Story  of  Some  Famous  Books. 

sophic  bard  of  Rydal  Mount,  Westmore- 
land, reveals  to  us  his  love  of  nature 
in  the  following  lines  : — 

"  One  impulse  from  a  vernal  wood  may  teach  you 

more  of  man, 

Of  moral  evil  and  of  good,  than  all  the  sages 
can." 

Many  of  his  pastorals  "  are  fresh,"  as 
Coleridge  once  said,  "  with  the  morning 
dew."  When  once  asked  by  a  visitor 
where  his  library  was,  he  replied,  "  The 
woods  and  streams  are  my  books."  So 
fond  was  he  of  wandering  over  "hill 
and  dale,  fountain  or  fresh  shade,"  that 
De  Quincey  has  estimated  his  perambula- 
tions as  exceeding  in  dimension  the 
circuit  of  the  globe  itself.  He  informs 
us  that  his  fine  poem  on  "  Tintern  Abbey  " 
was  composed  after  crossing  the  river 
Wye,  and  during  a  four  or  five  days' 
ramble  about  that  most  picturesque  river, 
in  company  with  his  sister.  Not  a  line 
of  it,  however,  was  either  uttered  or 
written  down  until  he  reached  Bristol. 
His  "  Ode  on  Immortality  "  has  this  fine 
burst  of  poetic  lament  on  illusions  of  life 
and  the  flight  of  time  : — 


Wordsworth.  127 

"  There  was  a  time  when  meadow,  grove,  and 

stream, 
The  earth,  and  every  common  sight,  to  me 

did  seem 
Apparelled  in  celestial   light— the  glory  and  the 

freshness  of  a  dream  ! 
It  is  not  now,  as  it  hath  been  of  yore, — 
Turn  wheresoe'er  I  may,  by  night  or  day, 
The  things  which  I  have  seen,  I  now  can  see  no 
more." 

The  well-known  tale  of  "Peter  Bell" 
was  founded  upon  an  incident  which  met 
the  eye  of  the  poet  in  a  newspaper,  of 
an  ass  being  found  hanging  its  head  over 
a  canal  in  a  wretched  condition.  Upon 
examination  it  was  ascertained  that  it 
was  looking  and  waiting  for  its  master, 
who  had  fallen  into  the  water  and 
was  drowned.  Another  of  Wordsworth's 
poems,  "The  Brothers,"  was  suggested 
by  the  following  incident,  which  had  been 
told  him  up  Ennerdale.  A  shepherd  had 
fallen  asleep  upon  the  top  of  a  rock, 
called  the  Pillar,  and  there  perished, 
as  described  in  the  poem,  his  staff  having 
been  left  mid- way  on  the  cliff.  It  was 
of  this  poem  that  Southey,  in  writing  to 
Coleridge,  said,  "  God  bless  Wordsworth 


128  The  Story  of  Some  Famous  Books. 

for  that  poem  !  "  Coleridge  confessed 
to  another  friend  that  he  "never  read 
that  model  of  English  pastoral  with  an 
unclouded  eye." 

It  is  the  high  prerogative  of  the  poet 
to  extract,  by  the  alembic  of  his  genius, 
beautiful  thoughts  and  images  from  the 
minute  and  even  commonplace  things, 
as  well  as  the  grander  and  more  sublime 
aspects  of  nature.  Few  objects  in  the 
arcana  of  nature  more  readily  attract 
the  eye  of  the  poet  than  the  bloom  and 
beauty  of  the  perfumed  flowers. 

As  an  illustration  of  the  fact  of  un- 
conscious possession  of  the  poetic  gift, 
it  is  related  of  Sir  Walter  Scott  that  not 
long  before  his  Lay  of  the  Last  Minstrel 
made  its  appearance,  he  was  crossing 
the  Firth  of  Forth  in  a  ferry-boat  with  a 
friend,  and  the  two  proposed  to  beguile 
the  time  by  writing  a  number  of  verses 
on  given  subjects.  At  the  end  of  an 
hour's  cogitations,  they  presented  the 
results,  when  Scott  and  his  friend  only 
produced  between  them  six  lines  !  "  It 
is  plain,"  the  former  exclaimed,  "that 
you  and  I  need  never  think  of  getting 


Sir  Walter  Scott.  129 

our  living  by  writing  poetry."  Yet  who 
made  more  money  and  fame  by  his 
genius  than  did  Sir  Walter  Scott  ? 

An  interesting  story  is  furnished  by 
Lockhart  of  the  gradual  growth  of  The 
Lay  of  the  Last  Minstrel.  The  lovely 
Countess  of  Dalkeith  hears  a  wild  legend 
of  Border  diablerie,  and  sportively  asks 
Scott  to  make  it  the  subject  of  a  ballad. 
The  poet's  accidental  confinement  in  the 
midst  of  a  yeomanry  camp  gave  him 
leisure  to  meditate  his  theme  to  the  sound 
of  the  bugle ;  suddenly  there  flashes  on 
him  the  idea  of  extending  his  simple  out- 
line so  as  to  embrace  a  vivid  panorama  of 
that  old  Border  life  of  war  and  tumult. 
A  friend's  suggestion  led  to  the  arrange- 
ment and  framework  of  the  Lay  and  the 
conception  of  the  ancient  Harper.  Thus 
step  by  step  grew  the  poem  that  first  made 
its  author  famous. 

Of  the  three  poems,  The  Lady  of  the 
Lake,  Marmion,  and  the  Lay  of  the  Last 
Minstrel,  the  last  named  is  considered  to 
bear  the  palm  of  excellence.  The  Lay, 
however,  was  modelled  after  the  irregular 
structure  of  Coleridge's  unfinished  poem 

9 


130  The  Story  of  Some  Famous  Books. 

of  Christabel,  as  Scott  admits  that  it  was 
in  it  he  first  found  this  measure  used  in 
serious  poetry. 

Carlyle  considers  that  Scott's  first  literary 
effort,  the  translation  of  Gotz  von  Ber- 
lichengtn,  was  the  prime  cause  of  his 
Marmion,  Lady  of  the  Lake,  and  all  that 
followed  from  the  same  creative  hand. 

The  manuscript  of  Waverley  lay  hid 
away  in  an  old  cabinet  for  years  before 
the  public  were  aware  of  its  existence. 
In  the  words  of  the  Great  Unknown  :  "  I 
had  written  the  greater  part  of  the  first 
volume  and  sketched  other  passages, 
when  I  mislaid  the  manuscript ;  and  only 
found  it  by  the  merest  accident,  as  I  was 
rummaging  the  drawer  of  an  old  cabinet ; 
and  I  took  the  fancy  of  finishing  it." 

In  the  year  1816  the  Antiquary  ap- 
peared, and  for  eight  years  a  long 
succession  of  novels  emanated  from  his 
prolific  brain  with  a  rapidity  as  wonder- 
ful as  their  merits  were  great.  Of  the 
origin  of  these  historic  romances  the 
author  himself  thus  informs  us  : — 

"  My  early  recollections  of  Highland  scenery 
and  customs  made  so  favourable  an  impression  in 


Sir  Walter  Scott.  131 

the  poem  called  The  Lady  of  the  Lake,  that  I  was 
induced  to  think  of  attempting  something  of  the 
same  kind  in  prose.  I  had  been  a  good  deal  in 
the  Highlands  at  a  time  when  they  were  much  less 
accessible,  and  much  less  visited,  than  they  have 
been  of  late  years,  and  was  acquainted  with  many 
of  the  old  warriors  of  1745,  who  were,  like  most 
veterans,  easily  induced  to  fight  their  battles  over 
again,  for  the  benefit  of  a  willing  listener  like  my- 
self. It  naturally  occurred  to  me  that  the  ancient 
traditions  and  high  spirit  of  a  people  who,  living 
in  a  civilised  age  and  country,  retained  so  strong  a 
tincture  of  manners  belonging  to  an  early  period 
of  society,  must  afford  a  subject  favourable  for 
romance,  if  it  should  not  prove  a  curious  tale 
marred  in  the  telling.  It  was  with  some  idea  of 
this  kind  that,  about  the  year  1805,  I  threw  to- 
gether about  one-third  part  of  the  first  volume  of 
Waver  ley." 

In  Scott's  Ivanhoe  is  the  character  of 
Rebecca,  the  original  of  which  was  a  lady 
of  Philadelphia,  named  Rebecca  Gratz, 
who  was  possessed  of  singular  beauty. 
One  of  the  most  intimate  friends  of  her 
family  was  Washington  Irving,  and  it  is 
through  his  acquaintance  with  this  lady 
and  Sir  Walter  Scott  that  we  have  handed 
down  to  us  the  beautiful  portraiture  that 
so  graces  the  charming  work  of  that  Wizard 
of  the  North,  Ivanhoe,  The  original  of 


132  The  Story  of  Some  Famous  Books. 

Jeanie  Deans,  in  the  Heart  of  Midlothian, 
was  Helen  Walker,  a  Scottish  girl,  left  an 
orphan  with  the  charge  of  a  younger  sister. 
The  reader  is  doubtless  familiar  with  the 
thrilling  story  of  her  heroic  bravery  in 
saving  at  the  last  moment  her  sister's 
life,  who  was  condemned  to  suffer  the 
penalty  for  murder.  Scott  wrote  the 
epitaph  on  the  tomb  of  Helen,  whose 
body  lies  in  the  churchyard  of  Irongray, 
six  miles  from  Dumfries. 

Scott,  "  the  potent  wizard  of  romance, 
at  the  waving  of  whose  wand  came  troop- 
ing on  the  stage  of  life  again  gallant 
knights  and  ladies  fair,  exprisoned  chargers 
and  splendid  tournaments,  with  their 
flashing  armour  and  blazoned  shields," 
was  the  poet,  also,  who  loved  to  sing  of 
knightly  deeds  of  valour  and  old  traditional 
love-lays.  He  was  endowed  with  such 
wonderful  fertility  of  invention  and  facility 
of  composition,  that  he  was  compared  to 
a  high-pressure  engine,  the  steam  of  which 
always  was  up  as  soon  as  he  entered  his 
study,  which  was  generally  at  six  a.m. 
Melrose  he  has  consecrated  by  his  genius, 
Abbotsford  by  his  living  presence,  and 


Sir  Waller  Scott.  133 

Dryburgh  by  his  sacred  dust  ;  while 
Nature  herself  may  be  said,  in  his  own 
beautiful  lines,  to  do  homage  to  his 
memory. 

"  Call  it  not  vain, — they  do  not  err,  who  say  that 

when  the  poet  dies, 

That  Nature  mourns  her  worshipper,  and  cele- 
brates his  obsequies, 
And  rivers  teach  the  rushing  wave 
To  murmur  dirges  round  his  grave  "  ! 

Sir  Walter  himself  tells  us  that  the  fame 
of  Miss  Edgeworth  did  much  to  inspire 
him.  He  says  that  her  writings  did  more 
than  all  the  legislative  enactments  towards 
completing  the  union  between  the  Irish 
and  English  peoples.  Scott  felt  that  he 
might  do  for  Scotland  what  Miss  Edge- 
worth  had  achieved  for  Ireland — that  he 
might  familiarize  Englishmen  with  the 
virtues  and  foibles  of  the  gallant  Scotch 
race,  and  promote  a  free  and  unrestrained 
intercourse  between  the  two  nations.  The 
idea  ultimately  developed  itself  in  the 
long  and  illustrious  series  known  as  the 
Waverley  Novels. 

Washington  Irving  wrote  parts  of  The 
Sketch  Book  in    London    and  elsewhere; 


134  The  Story  of  Some  Famous  Books. 

his  story  of  The  Stout  Gentleman  was 
sketched  while  mounted  on  a  stile  at 
Stratford-on-Avon.  living's  love  of  letters 
was  an  intuition  ;  on  one  occasion  he  said, 
in  reference  to  his  fitful  muse,  "But. these 
capricious  moods,  of  the  heat  and  glow  of 
composition,  have  been  the  happiest  hours 
of  my  life.  I  have  never  found,  in  any- 
thing outside  of  the  four  walls  of  my  study, 
any  enjoyment  equal  to  sitting  at  my 
writing  desk,  with  a  clean  page,  a  new 
theme,  and  a  mind  awake."  When  in  Paris 
he  seems  to  have  been  unable  to  do  much 
with  his  pen  for  some  six  weeks,  when  his 
friend  Moore  called  upon  him.  Irving 
told  him  how  long  he  had  been  waiting 
for  the  impulse  to  write  something,  but 
that  now  it  had  come  to  him,  and  he 
showed  him  his  desk  covered  with  closely 
written  sheets ;  that  work  was  Bracebridge 
Hall. 

A  love  of  the  muse  was  enkindled 
in  the  mind  and  heart  of  James  Mont- 
gomery in  his  school-days  by  hearing  Blair's 
"  Grave  "  read.  Many  of  his  poems  were 
composed  during  his  unjust  imprisonment ; 
for  he  was  a  philanthropist  as  well  as  a 


Leigh  Hunt.  135 

poet,  and  because  of  his  conscientious 
opposition  to  slavery  and  other  political 
abuses  he  became  the  victim  of  persecu- 
tion. He  wrote  his  well-known  poem 
"  The  Common  Lot"  during  a  country  walk 
in  the  snow.  His  productions  are  volu- 
minous, and  some  of  his  poems  and 
hymns  are  great  favourites,  such  as  his 
"  Oh,  where  shall  rest  be  found  ?  "  "  Night 
is  the  time  for  rest,"  "  There  is  a  cairn  for 
those  who  weep,"  and  "  Friend  after  friend 
departs !  who  has  not  lost  a  friend  ? " 
"  Prayer  is  the  soul's  sincere  desire,"  etc. 

As  in  the  case  of  Montgomery  and 
others,  Leigh  Hunt,  by  the  power  of  his 
genius,  seems  to  have  transfigured  the 
gloomy  prison-house  into  a  fairy  palace  of 
the  imagination  ;  he  wrote  in  part  his 
Story  of  Rimini  and  The  Descent  of  Li- 
berty while  deprived  of  his  personal  free- 
dom. Leigh  Hunt  has,  indeed,  been 
styled  "  the  most  blithesome  prison-bird 
that  ever  warbled  in  a  cage." 

Coleridge's  "  Ancient  Mariner  "  has  been 
the  subject  of  extensive  criticism,  yet — 

"  Like  all  his  writings,  the  versification  is  exquisite: 
his  language  puts  on  every  form,  it  expresses  every 


136  The  Story  of  Some  Famous  Books. 

sound  ;  he  almost  writes  to  the  eye  and  to  the  ear. 
This  production  is  a  wild,  mystical,  phantasmagoric 
narrative,  most  picturesquely  related  in  the  old 
English  ballad  measure,  and  in  language  to  which 
an  air  of  antiquity  is  skilfully  given  in  admirable 
harmony  with  the  spectral  character  of  the  events. 
The  whole  poem  is  a  splendid  dream,  filling  the 
ear  with  the  strange  and  floating  melodies  of  sleep, 
and  the  eye  with  a  shifting,  vaporous  succession  of 
fantastic  images,  gloomy  or  radiant."  ' 

This  weird  poem  describes  a  man  who 
shot  an  albatross,  a  bird  of  good  omen  to 
sailors.  For  this  offence  he  was  severely 
punished,  and  on  his  repentance  was 
doomed  to  wander  over  the  earth,  and 
repeat  the  story  of  his  wrong  as  a  warning 
to  others. 

"  The  poem  originated,"  says  Wordsworth, 
"  out  of  the  want  of  five  pounds  which  Coleridge 
and  I  needed  to  make  a  tour  together  in  Devon- 
shire. We  agreed  to  write,  jointly,  a  poem,  the 
subject  of  which  Coleridge  took  from  a  dream 
which  a  friend  of  his  had  once  dreamt  concerning 
a  person  suffering  under  a  dire  curse  from  the 
commission  of  some  crime.  I  supplied  the  crime, 
the  shooting  of  the  albatross,  from  an  accident  I 
had  met  with  in  one  of  Shelvocke's  voyages.  We 
tried  the  poem  conjointly  for  a  day  or  two,  but  we 

1  Shaw's  English  Literature. 


Coleridge.  137 

pulled  different  ways,  and  only  a  few  lines  of  it 
are  mine." 

Coleridge's  changeful  career  exhibits 
many  phases  of  character,  but  among  them 
not  the  least  interesting  is  that  of  the  poet. 
One  of  the  Lake-poets,  as  they  have  been 
familiarly  styled  (Wordsworth  and  Southey 
forming  with  himself  the  trio),  he  subse- 
quently removed  to  Highgate,  one  of  the 
northern  suburbs  of  London,  ostensibly 
for  medical  treatment  of  his  opium  habit. 
Instead  of  being  cured,  however,  it  was 
hinted  that  he  made  his  medical  friend 
as  bad  as  himself.  This  sad  habit  in 
which  he  indulged  accounts  for  the  strange 
mystery  of  some  of  his  poetry, — "  Kubla 
Khan,"  the  "  Ancient  Mariner,"  and 
"  Christabel."  The  "  Kubla  Khan,"  which 
is  so  remarkable  for  its  rich  delicacy  of 
colouring,  as  well  as  its  melody  and 
mystery,  owes  its  existence  to  the  following 
incident.  In  the  summer  of  1797  he  was 
reading  in  a  lonely  farm-house,  when, 
being  unwell,  he  took  an  anodyne, 
from  the  effects  of  which  he  fell  asleep 
in  his  chair,  at  the  moment  he  was  read- 
ing the  following  sentence  in  Purchas's 


138  The  Story  of  Some  Famous  Books. 

Pilgrims  :  "  Here  the  Khan  Kubla  com- 
manded a  palace  to  be  built,  and  a  stately 
garden  thereunto ;  and  thus  ten  miles  of 
fertile  ground  were  enclosed  with  a  wall." 
He  continued  asleep  for  three  hours, 
during  which  time  he  vividly  remembered 
having  composed  from  two  to  three 
hundred  lines,  and  this  without  any  con- 
sciousness of  effort.  On  awakening,  he 
remembered  the  whole,  and  taking  his 
pen,  began  eagerly  to  commit  to  paper. 
He  had  written  as  far  as  the  published 
fragment,  when  he  was  interrupted  by 
some  person  on  urgent  business,  which 
detained  him  about  an  hour.  On  resum- 
ing his  pen,  he  was  mortified  to  find  that 
with  the  exception  of  a  few  lines  all  had 
vanished  from  his  memory.  Coleridge 
had  a  wonderful  power  of  summoning  up 
images  in  his  own  mind,  an  instance  in 
point  being  the  lines  purporting  to  have 
been  composed  in  the  valley  of  Chamouni, 
whereas  Wordsworth  informs  us  that  "  he 
never  visited  the  vale  of  Chamouni,  or 
was  near  it  in  his  life." 

Upon  the  authority  of  De  Quincey,  it  is 
stated  that  Coleridge  founded  the  "  Hymn 


Coleridge.  139 

to  Chamouni  "  on  a  short  poem  upon  the 
same  subject,  by  Frederika  Brun.  "  The 
mere  framework  of  the  poem  is  exactly 
the  same,"  he  says,  "  but  the  dry  bones  of 
the  German  outline  have  been  created  by 
Coleridge  into  the  fulness  of  life." 

Coleridge  revealed  his  omnivorous  appe- 
tite for  reading  in  his  early  life,  for  he  is 
reported  to  have  "  read  straight  through  a 
circulating  library,  folios  and  all ; "  and 
when  in  his  fifteenth  year,  he  says,  "  I  had 
bewildered  myself  in  metaphysics  and 
theological  controversy."  The  life-story 
of  this  gifted  writer  is  a  sad  one  to  peruse, 
full  of  inconsistencies  and  errors  ;  and 
many  of  his  misfortunes  and  sufferings 
were  self-inflicted.  If  his  resort  to  opium- 
eating  was  at  first  for  the  relief  of  his 
rheumatism,  soon  the  remedy  in  his  case 
became  worse  than  the  disease.  How 
painful  to  read  are  his  own  confessions 
of  his  infatuated  use  of  the  pernicious 
drug.  "  In  short,  conceive  whatever  is 
most  wretched,  helpless,  hopeless,  and 
you  will  form  as  tolerable  a  notion  of 
my  state  as  it  is  possible  for  a  good 
man  to  have ! "  Poor  Coleridge  !  his 


1 40  The  Story  of  Some  Famous  Books. 

irresolution  and  indolence  were  like  evil 
genii  hovering  over  him  through  his  whole 
life.  In  fine,  he  was  a  great  genius  with  a 
great  infirmity  ;  the  twinhood  of  mental 
strength  and  feebleness,  he  claims  at 
once  our  reverence  and  our  deep  com- 
passion. 

De  Quincey  informs  us,  when  referring 
to  Coleridge  and  his  opium  habit,  that,  like 
the  poet,  when  his  powers  of  composition 
for  any  length  of  time  had  been  exerted, 
the  result  of  his  exertions  produced  a  feel- 
ing of  disgust.  "  And  in  after  years,"  he 
states,  "  Coleridge  confessed  that  he  never 
could  read  anything  he  had  written  with- 
out a  sense  of  overpowering  disgust."  Re- 
verting to  his  own  case,  which  was  nearly 
the  same  as  his,  he  continues  : — 

"At  times  when  I  had  slept  at  more  regular 
hours,  for  several  nights  consecutively,  and  had 
armed  myself  by  a  sudden  increase  of  the  opium 
for  a  few  days  running,  I  recovered,  at  times,  a 
remarkable  glow  of  jovial  spirits.  In  some  such 
artificial  respites  it  was  from  my  usual  state  of 
distress,  and  purchased  at  a  heavy  price  of  subse- 
quent suffering,  that  I  wrote  the  greater  part  of 
the  Opium  Confessions.'1''  The  narrative  part  pre- 
ceding the  incoherent  dreams  which  that  work 


A  udubon.  141 

describes  "  was  written,"  he  says,  "  with  singular 
rapidity,  but  the  dreams  themselves  were  composed 
slowly,  and  by  separate  efforts  of  thought.  These 
circumstances  I  mention  to  account  for  my  having 
written  anything  in  a  happy  or  genial  state  of 
mind,  when  I  was  in  a  general  state  of  mind  so 
different  by  my  own  description." 

Audubon,  the  ornithologist,  who  seems 
to  have  been  a  born  naturalist,  tells  us 
that 

' '  no  roof  seemed  so  secure  to  him  as  that  formed 
of  the  dense  foliage  under  which  the  feathered 
tribes  were  seen  to  resort,  or  the  caves  and  fissures 
of  the  massy  rocks  to  which  the  dark-winged  cor- 
morant and  the  curlew  retired  to  rest,  or  to  protect 
themselves  from  the  fury  of  the  tempest." 

To  advance  his  skill  as  a  draughtsman 
he  went  to  Paris,  and  studied  under  the 
celebrated  artist  David.  Returning  again 
to  the  New  World,  he  revisited  the  woods 
and  fields  with  increased  ardour  and 
enthusiasm  ;  he  ransacked  the  prairies  and 
mountains  as  well  as  streams  and  rivers 
to  learn  the  habits  and  retreats  of  the 
feathered  minstrels  of  the  wilderness. 
His  object  at  first  was  not  to  become  a 
writer,  but  simply  to  indulge  a  passion,  to 
enjoy  the  study  of  these  beautiful  creatures 


142  The  Story  of  Some  Famous  Books. 

of  the  air.  It  was  Prince  Lucien  Bona- 
parte, an  accomplished  naturalist,  who 
first  incited  him  to  arrange  his  beautiful 
drawings  in  a  form  for  publication.  With 
this  object  in  view  he  revisited  prairies, 
lakes,  rivers,  and  sea  shore,  and  enriched 
his  portfolio  with  a  mass  of  information 
and  a  large  number  of  drawings,  when  an 
accident  occurred  to  his  collection.  The 
story  is  thus  briefly  given.  Leaving  his 
home  in  Kentucky,  he  went  to  Philadelphia, 
and  placing  his  drawings  carefully  in  a  box 
he  gave  them  for  safe  keeping  into  the 
charge  of  a  relative.  After  an  absence  of 
several  months  he  returned,  and  on  open- 
ing the  box  to  his  dismay  he  discovered, 
instead  of  his  thousand  sketches  and  por- 
traits, nothing  remained  to  him  but  a  pair 
of  Norway  rats  with  their  progeny  nestled 
among  innumerable  bits  of  paper.  The 
poor  artist  was  overwhelmed ;  he  slept  not 
for  a  few  nights,  but  his  courage  returned, 
and  .vith  a  new  resolution  he  again  sallied 
forth  with  notebook,  pencil,  and  gun  into 
the  woods  as  gaily  as  if  nothing  had  hap- 
pened. He  said  he  might  make  better 
drawings  after  all  than  those  which  had 


Audubon.  143 

been  destroyed,  and  this  he  accomplished 
within  an  interval  of  three  years.  In 
reading  Audubon's  books  you  feel  the 
fresh  air  blowing  in  your  face,  scent  the 
odour  of  the  prairie  flowers  and  autumn 
woods,  or  hear  the  surging  of  the  sea. 
He  takes  you  into  the  squatter's  hut,  in 
the  lowly  swamp,  where  the  tells  the  story 
of  the  woodcutter's  pioneer  life ;  or  he 
sallies  out  in  the  night  to  hunt  the  conger, 
and  when  daylight  returns  he  invokes  the 
fairy  singers  of  the  woods  to  your  listening 
ear.  Audubon's  life  was  full  of  romantic 
adventure,  and  after  encountering  and 
surmounting  difficulties  that  would  have 
discouraged  other  adventurous  spirits,  he 
took  his  splendid  collection  of  drawings 
to  Europe.  There  he  met  with  the  cordial 
friendship  and  aid  of  such  men  as  Herschel, 
Cuvier,  Humboldt,  Brewster,  Wilson,  and 
Sir  Walter  Scott.  His  grand  work  forms 
four  large  folio  volumes,  comprising  four 
hundred  and  forty-eight  coloured  pictures 
of  the  birds  of  America,  life-size  ;  each  is 
so  faithfully  portrayed  that  you  catch  an 
idea  of  the  bird's  habits  and  nature  as 
well  as  its  plumage.  As  a  monument  of 


1 44  TJie  Story  of  Some  Famous  Books. 

American     devotion      to     ornithological 
science  this  stately  work  is  unrivalled. 

Alexander  Wilson,  of  Paisley,  was  one 
in  whose  "  heart  the  birds  nestled  and 
sang."  He,  like  Audubon,  acquired  an 
undying  fame  by  first  making  known  to 
the  world  of  science  the  feathered  denizens 
of  the  American  forests.  In  early  man- 
hood he  went  to  America,  and  soon  began 
his  favourite  pursuit  in  forming  his  collec- 
tion of  birds,  as  the  basis  of  his  work  on 
American  ornithology.  He  had  the  good 
fortune,  as  soon  as  he  needed,  to  secure 
a  willing  publisher,  and  he  found  one 
in  Bradford  of  Boston.  In  1808  Wilson 
made  an  extended  tour  through  the 
wilds  and  forests,  and  in  little  more 
than  seven  years,  "  without  patronage, 
fortune,  or  recompense,"  he  accomplished 
more  than  the  combined  body  of  natura- 
lists of  Europe  had  achieved  in  a  century. 


VI. 

ROGERS.  —  BUTLER'S  "  HUDIBRAS."  — 
SOUTHEY.  —  CRABBE.  —  FRANKLIN'S 
"  AUTOBIOGRAPHY." — CHARLES  LAMB. 
—  BYRON.  —  MOORE.  —  CARLYLE.  — 
POE. — DANA. — PRESOOTT. — HOOD. 

|OGERS'S  Pleasures  of  Memory, 
published  in  1792,  and  written 
principally  during  his  leisure 
moments  in  his  banking  house,  had  an 
immediate  and  astonishing  success.  His 
Italy  proved  less  successful,  and  the 
author  revised  the  poem  and  published 
an  elegantly  illustrated  edition  of  the  work, 
which  for  its  artistic  beauty  surpassed 
anything  then  produced.  The  cost  was 
enormous,  but  the  poet  was  wealthy. 
His  most  approved  production  is  generally 
thought  to  be  his  Human  Life,  which 
appeared  in  1819.  Mr.  Rogers  was 
offered  the  laureateship  in  1850,  but  he 

10 


146  The  Story  of  Some  Famous  Books. 

declined  the  proffered  honour  on  account 
of  his  advanced  age.  He  was  engaged  on 
The  Pleasures  of  Memory  for  nine  years, 
on  Human  Life  for  nearly  the  same  space 
of  time,  and  Italy  was  not  completed  in 
less  than  sixteen  years. 

The  remark  was  once  made  to  Moore, 
the  poet,  that  it  was  supposed  his  verses 
slipped  off  his  tongue  as  if  by  magic, 
and  a  passage  of  great  ease  was  quoted. 
"  Why,  sir,"  replied  Moore,  "  that  line 
cost  me  hours,  days,  and  weeks  of  attri- 
tion before  it  would  come." 

Pope  and  Goldsmith  were  among  the 
hard  workers  with  their  brains.  Gold- 
smith considered  four  lines  a  day  good 
work.  He  was  seven  years  in  "  beating 
out  the  pure  gold  "  of  his  Deserted  Village. 

Samuel  Butler  commenced  his  satirical 
poem  Hudibras  when  engaged  with  one  of 
Cromwell's  generals,  Sir  Samuel  Luke,  a 
Bedfordshire  gentleman,  where  he  had  an 
opportunity  of  studying  the  habits  and 
characters  of  the  Puritans,  that  personage 
having  been  the  original  of  the  "  ever- 
memorable  knight."  The  first  three  cantos 
of  Hudibras  were  published  in  1663,  and 


Butler's  "Hudibras:'         147 

the  poem  became  exceedingly  popular 
with  the  Court  and  cavalier  party.  Butler 
seems  to  have  received  unbounded  praise, 
but  no  Court  patronage  followed,  for  he 
died  in  abject  poverty  in  1680.  The 
original  idea  of  Hudibras was  derived  from 
Don  Quixote,  and  although  it  is  now 
probably  but  little  read,  yet  the  witty 
couplets  and  wise  saws  of  Hudibras  still 
linger  among  the  familiar  sayings  that 
we  are  accustomed  to  use  and  to  hear  in 
our  social  talk,  without  remembering 
whence  they  have  originated. 

It  has  been  said  of  Butler  that  he  was 
no  less  remarkable  for  his  poverty  than 
his  pride.  A  friend  of  his  one  evening 
invited  him  to  supper,  and  contrived  to 
place  in  his  pocket  a  purse  containing  one 
hundred  guineas.  On  his  discovering  this 
good  service  of  his  friend,  he  hurried  back 
and  returned  the  gift  with  expressions  of 
great  displeasure  at  the  supposed  insult ! 
Butler  was  not  a  model  of  good  behaviour 
on  many  occasions,  and  to  this  infirmity 
in  part  may  be  attributed  his  destitution 
and  neglect  by  society.  Charles  II., 
although  he  is  said  to  have  carried  a  copy 


148  The  Story  of  Some  Famous  Books. 

of  Hudibras  about  with  him  in  his  pocket, 
does  not  seem  ever  to  have  put  anything 
into  the  pocket  or  purse  of  its  author. 

Southey,  in  a  letter  to  a  friend,  thus 
describes  his  average  day's  work  : — 

' '  Three  pages  of  history  (of  Portugal)  after 
breakfast,  then  to  transcribe  and  copy  for  the 
press,  or  make  selections  and  biographies  (for 
Specimens  of  the  British  Poets),  or  what  else  suits 
my  humour  till  dinner-time.  After  dinner,  I  read, 
write  letters,  see  the  newspapers,  and  very  often 
indulge  in  a  siesta.  After  tea  I  go  to  poetry 
(the  Curse  of  Kehama)  and  correct  and  re-write, 
and  copy  till  I  am  tired  ;  and  then  turn  to  anything 
else  till  supper.  And  this  is  my  life. " 

He  was  never  so  happy  as  when  he  sat 
among  his  books,  pen  in  hand,  adding 
newly  written  sheets  to  the  pile  of  manu- 
scripts already  in  his  table  drawer.  His 
incessant  toil  brought  on  the  sad  calamity 
of  a  brain  worn  out,  and  caused  the  busy 
workman  to  wander  among  the  books  he 
had  gathered  around  him  and  yet  loved 
although  the  light  of  reason  had  passed 
into  eclipse. 

Southey,  one  of  the  most  prolific  of 
poets,  is  said  to  have  destroyed  more 
verses  written  between  his  twentieth  and 


Franklin's  "Autobiography?    149 

thirtieth  years,  than  he  published  during 
his  whole  life.  It  is  a  sad  fact  to  add  that 
for  nearly  three  years  he  may  be  said  to 
have  survived  himself;  he  used  to  sit  in 
his  library,  in  hopeless  vacuity  of  mind, 
unable  to  hold  further  converse  with  his 
books,  which  he  so  loved,  as  we  well 
know  from  his  tributary  stanzas  : — 

' '  My  days  among  the  dead  are  passed  !  around  me 

I  behold 

Where'er  these  casual  eyes  are  cast,  the  mighty 
minds  of  old  ; 

My  never-failing  friends  are  they, 
With  whom  I  converse  night  and  day. 
With  them  I  take  delight  in  weal,  and  seek  relief 

in  woe  ; 

And,  while   I  understand  and  feel  how  much  to 
them  I  owe, 

My  cheeks  have  often  been  bedewed 
With  tears  of  thoughtful  gratitude." 

Of  Franklin's  Autobiography  the  first 
part  was  written  at  Twyford,  England,  in 
1771,  while  he  was  visiting  Shipley, 
Bishop  of  St.  Asaph.  This  portion  ended 
with  Franklin's  marriage  in  1730.  In 
1784  he  resumed  work  on  the  second  part 
of  his  memoirs  while  living  at  Passy,  near 
Paris.  When  thus  engaged  he  had  not 


150  Tlie  Story  of  Some  Famous  Books. 

with  him  his  first  part,  and  supposed  it 
had  been  left  at  his  home  in  Philadelphia, 
after  his  return  from  England  in  1775. 
The  third  part  was  begun  in  1788,  while 
Franklin  was  in  Philadelphia,  and  is 
brought  down  to  1757.  This  portion  ends 
the  Autobiography  as  it  has  been  usually 
printed,  except  in  the  edition  of  Mr.  John 
Bigelow,  in  1868,  which  includes  a  fourth 
part  consisting  of  a  few  pages  written  in 
1789,  and  not  to  be  found  elsewhere  in 
English.  These  are  rather  of  a  political 
character,  and  bring  the  memoirs  down  a 
year  later,  when  they  close.  Immediately 
after  Dr.  Franklin's  death,  in  1790,  the 
first  portion  was  published  in  French  in 
Paris, — a  remarkable  fact,  that  a  work 
destined  to  have  so  great  popularity  should 
first  appear  in  a  foreign  tongue.  It  is,  in 
fact,  an  English  translation  from  a  French 
translation  of  the  original  English  ! 

Franklin  tells  us  that  from  his  earliest 
days  he  was  passionately  fond  of  reading, 
and  that  "  all  the  money  that  came  into 
his  hands  was  laid  out  in  the  purchase  of 
books."  Among  his  first  acquisitions  were 
Bunyan's  works,  Plutarch's  Lives,  Defoe's 


Charles  Lamb.  151 

Essay  on  Projects,  and  Mather's  Essay  to  do 
Good.  The  two  last,  he  adds,  gave  him 
"a  turn  of  thinking,  that  had  an  influ- 
ence on  some  of  the  principal  future 
events  of  my  life." 

Crabbe's  poems,  comprising  The  Village 
and  The  Library,  were  so  much  admired 
in  manuscript  by  Edmund  Burke,  that  he 
took  them  to  Dodsley,  who  published 
them  in  a  volume.  Burke  befriended  the 
poet  in  many  ways,  and  was  the  means  of 
his  being  appointed  to  positions  of  eccle- 
siastical preferment.  Crabbe  subsequently 
produced  The  Borough  and  Tales  of  the 
Hall,  works  which  brought  him  into 
friendship  with  Southey,  Wordsworth, 
Campbell,  Moore,  Irving,  and  Sir  Walter 
Scott  ;  and  it  may  be  added  the  last  books 
the  great  novelist  called  for  during  his  last 
days  were  the  Bible  and  Crabbe's  poems. 

Charles  Lamb's  life  record  is,  indeed, 
a  sad  one.  Who  has  not  been  made 
familiar  with  the  details  of  its  terrible 
trials  and  its  heroic  self-negation  ?  Is  it 
any  wonder  that  his  writings  were  desul- 
tory and  fragmentary,  broken,  as  one  may 
say,  like  the  life  out  of  which  they  struggled? 


i  52  The  Story  of  Some  Famous  Books. 

The  wonder  is  not  that  he  wrote  as  he 
did,  but  that  he  wrote  at  all.  His  strongest, 
if  not  his  chief,  incentive  to  literature 
was  the  necessity  for  earning  money  in 
order  to  maintain  his  poor  mad  sister, — for 
mad  she  continued  at  intervals  all  her  life, 
and  was  conscious  of  the  dreadful  fact. 
So  conscious,  indeed,  that  when  she  felt 
her  reason  giving  way,  she  and  Charles 
used  to  walk  to  the  mad-house  together, 
hand-in-hand,  weeping  as  if  their  hearts 
would  break ! l 

"  The  adoption  of  the  signature  '  Elia  '  by 
Charles  Lamb,"  says  Talfourd,  "  was  purely  acci- 
dental. His  first  contribution  was  a  description 
of  the  Old  South  Sea  House,  where  Lamb  had 
passed  a  few  months'  novitiate  as  a  clerk,  thirty 
years  before,  and  of  its  inmates,  who  had  long 
passed  away ;  and,  remembering  the  name  of  a 
gay,  light-hearted  foreigner,  who  had  fluttered 
there  at  that  time,  he  subscribed  his  name  to 
the  essay,"  instead  of  his  own. 

The  Essays  of  Elia  are  unique  in  litera- 
ture; they  are  a  reflex  of  the  author's 
peculiar  humour,  whims,  poetic  instinct, 
and  his  kindly  nature. 

It  is  remarkable  that  Charles  Lamb 
1  R.  H.  Stoddard. 


Charles  Lamb.  153 

should  have  enjoyed  the  friendship  of 
such  opposite  characters  during  his  life  as 
Wordsworth,  Southey,  and  Coleridge.  We 
do  not  know  what  circumstances  originated 
his  writings,  but  it  is  pleasant  to  know  that 
before  his  literary  productions  attracted 
the  applause  of  the  world,  he  had  a  select 
circle  of  contemporaries  who  could  ap- 
preciate them.  Some  writers  have  been 
compared  to  musical  glasses,  because  you 
can  get  no  music  out  of  them  until  they 
are  wetted.  You  may  have  seen  a  portrait 
of  Lamb  that  is  suggestive  of  this  fact ;  his 
"  particular  wanity  "  having  been  gin  and 
water.  Byron,  Moore,  Campbell,  and 
others,  might  be  named  as  of  the  class. 
Charles  Lamb  had  another  infirmity,  which 
was,  however,  an  involuntary  one,  an  im- 
pediment in  his  speech,  or,  as  he  once 
expressed  it,  "  gifted  with  a  stutter,  or 
catapult,  for  it  shot  words  out  of  his 
mouth."  Although  accustomed  to  it  all 
his  life,  he  was  naturally  annoyed  if  any 
one  noticed  it  openly.  On  one  occasion, 
among  the  guests  at  Moxon  the 
publisher's  there  was  a  gentleman  whose 
wife  made  herself  prominently  unpleasant 


154  The  Story  of  Some  Famous  Books. 

by  her  loud  and  incessant  talking,  and  by 
the  shrewishness  of  her  temper,  her  hus- 
band being  the  chief  sufferer.  After  a 
short  remark  from  Lamb,  the  gentleman 
observed  to  him,  "  I  am  sorry  to  perceive 
that  you  have  an  impediment  in  your  speech, 
sir."  "  Yes,  sir,  I  have,"  replied  Lamb, — 
"don't  you  wish  that  your  wife  had  ?  " 

Like  Thomson,  Lamb  does  not  seem  to 
have  been  an  early  riser,  as  we  gather 
from  his  paper  about  "  Rising  with  the 
Lark,"  which  reads  in  this  wise  : — 

"  At  what  precise  minute  that  little  airy  musi- 
cian doffs  his  night  gear,  and  prepares  to  tune  up 
his  unseasonable  matins,  we  are  not  naturalist 
enough  to  determine.  But  for  a  mere  human 
gentleman — that  has  no  orchestra  business  to  call 
him  from  his  warm  bed  to  such  preposterous 
exercises — we  take  ten,  or  half  after  ten  (eleven,  of 
course,  during  this  Christmas  solstice)  to  be  the 
very  earliest  hour  at  which  he  can  begin  to  think 
of  abandoning  his  pillow.  To  think  of  it,  we  say  ; 
for  to  do  it  in  earnest  requires  another  half-hour's 
good  consideration." 

A  clever  limner  thus  sketches  our  famed 
essayist : — 

' '  A  small  spare  man,  close  gaitered  to  the  knee, 
In  suit  of  rusty  black  whose  folds  betray 


Byron.  155 

The  last  loved  dusty  folio,  bought  to-day, 
And  carried  proudly  to  the  sanctuary 
Of  home  (and  Mary's)  keeping. 

Quaintly  wise 

In  saws  and  knowledge  of  a  bygone  age, 
Each  Old  World  fancy  on  a  yellow  page, 
Tracked  by  the  '  smoky-brightness '  of  his  eyes, 
Shone  new-illumined  ;  or  in  daring  flight 
That  outvied  Ariel,  his  spirit  caught 
The  reflex  of  a  rainbowed  cloud,  and  taught 
The  glories  of  a  Dreamland  of  delight  !  "  ' 

Byron  has  told  us  that  the  Giaour  is 
but  a  string  of  passages. 

"  This  accusation,  brought  by  himself,  against 
his  poems  is  not  just,  but  when  the  author  goes 
on  to  say  of  them  that  'their  faults,  whatever 
they  may  be,  are  those  of  negligence  and  not 
of  labour,'  he  says  what  is  perfectly  true. 
Lara  he  declares  he  '  wrote  while  undressing 
after  coming  home  from  balls  and  masquerades, 
in  the  year  of  revelry  1814.'  The  Bride  of 
Abydos  was  written  in  four,  the  Corsair  in  ten 
days.  He  calls  this 'a  humiliating  confession,  as 
it  proves  my  own  want  of  judgment  in  publishing, 
and  the  public's  in  reading,  things  which  cannot 
have  stamina  for  permanency.'  Again  he  does 
his  poems  injustice  ;  the  producer  of  such  poems 
could  not  but  publish  them,  the  public  could  not 
but  read  them.  Nor  could  Byron  have  produced 

1  Temple  Bar. 


156  The  Story  of  Some  Famous  Books. 

his  work  in  any  other  fashion  ;  his  poetic  work 
could  not  have  first  grown  and  matured  in  his  own 
mind,  and  then  come  forth  as  an  organic  whole. 
Byron  had  not  enough  of  the  artist  in  him  for  this, 
nor  enough  of  self-command.  He  wrote,  as  he 
truly  tells  us,  to  relieve  himself,  and  he  went  on 
writing  because  he  found  the  relief  became  indis- 
pensable. But  it  was  inevitable  that  works  so 
produced  should  be,  in  general,  '  a  string  of 
passages,'  poured  out,  as  he  describes  them,  with 
rapidity  and  excitement,  and  with  new  passages 
constantly  suggesting  themselves,  and  added  while 
his  work  was  going  through  the  press.  But  Byron 
has  a  wonderful  power  of  vividly  conceiving  a 
single  incident,  a  single  situation, — of  throwing 
himself  upon  it,  grasping  it  as  if  it  were  real  and 
he  saw  it  and  felt  it,  and  of  making  us  see  and  feel 
it  too.  To  the  poetry  of  Byron  the  world  has 
ardently  paid  homage ;  full  justice  from  his  con- 
temporaries, perhaps  even  more  than  justice,  his 
torrent  of  poetry  received.  His  poetry  was  ad- 
mired, adored,  'with  all  its  imperfections  on  its 
head,'  in  spite  of  negligence,  in  spite  of  diffuseness, 
in  spite  of  repetitions,  in  spite  of  whatever  faults  it 
possessed.  His  name  is  still  great  and  brilliant."1 

Scott  lavished  extravagant  praise  on 
Byron,  comparing  him  for  versatility  and 
poetic  power  to  Shakespeare,  while  others 
say  "  he  has  treated  hardly  any  subject  but 

1  Matthew  Arnold. 


Byron.  157 

one — himself."  Truth  lies  between  the 
extremes. 

Lord  Byron  wrote  his  poem  The  Pri- 
soner of  Chilian  in  1816,  shortly  after  he 
left  England  for  the  last  time,  and  while 
he  was  living  with  Shelley  at  a  little  inn 
at  Merges,  two  miles  from  Lausanne  in 
Switzerland.  When  he  composed  his 
poem,  he  did  not  know  that  there  had 
been  a  real  prisoner  of  Chillon  :  it  was  the 
mere  sight  of  the  dungeon  that  suggested 
the  tragedy  to  his  imagination.  When 
Byron  was  informed  of  the  fact  of  there 
having  been  an  actual  captive — the  illus- 
trious Bonnivard — incarcerated  there,  he 
wrote  the  fine  apostrophe  to  his  memory. 

Bonnivard  was  a  Swiss  patriot,  whose 
imprisonment  has  made  this  castle  on  the 
eastern  shore  of  the  Lake  of  Geneva  one 
of  the  shrines  of  freedom.  Bonnivard, 
when  but  sixteen  years  old,  inherited  from 
his  uncle  the  rich  priory  of  St.  Victor ; 
but  having  espoused  the  cause  of  the  city 
of  Geneva  against  Charles  V.  of  Savoy, 
the  latter  sequestered  his  estates  and  im- 
prisoned him.  After  two  years  he  re- 
gained his  liberty,  and  again  took  up  arms 


158  The  Story  of  Some  Famous  Books. 

for  the  recovery  of  his  estates,  but  was 
again  defeated,  and  confined  in  the  castle 
of  Chillon  for  six  years,  when  at  the  Re- 
formation he  was  liberated. 

As  to  the  sources  of  Byron's  several 
productions,  it  may  be  said  of  them,  as  of 
his  Childe  Harold,  which  is  supposed  to 
be  largely  autobiographic,  that  they  owe 
their  existence  to  the  moods  and  modes 
of  his  own  experience  and  life,  as  well  as 
the  incidents  and  characters  he  met  with 
in  his  travels. 

It  has  been  suggested  that  there  is  a 
marked  resemblance  between  the  career 
of  Shelley  and  that  of  Byron.  Both  were 
descended  from  ancient  families.  Both  of 
them  were  educated  in  the  conservative 
atmosphere  of  public  schools  and  univer- 
sities— Byron  at  Harrow  and  Cambridge, 
Shelley  at  Eton  and  Oxford.  Both  of 
them  were  trained  under  conditions  which 
were  wholly  opposed  to  the  adoption  of 
radical  principles.  Both  of  them  were 
married  at  a  comparatively  early  age,  and 
both  of  them  soon  separated  from  their 
wives.  Both  of  them  were  remarkable  for 
their  reckless  disregard  of  public  opinion, 


Shelley.  159 

and  for  the  license  with  which  they 
attacked  every  political,  social,  and 
religious  institution.  Shelley,  it  is  said, 
caught  inspiration  for  his  muse  as  he 
wandered  amid  the  classic  ruins  of  the 
Palace  of  the  Caesars  and  other  historic 
sites,  as  Byron  did  loitering  among  the 
columns  and  galleries  of  the  Coliseum. 
Shelley,  indeed,  tells  us  that  The  Prome- 
theus was  written  upon  the  mountainous 
ruins  of  the  Baths  of  Caracalla,  among  the 
flowery  glades  and  thickets  of  odoriferous 
perfume.  The  bright  blue  sky  of  Rome, 
and  the  effect  of  the  vigorous  awakening  of 
spring  in  that  divinest  of  climates,  and  the 
new  life  with  which  it  drenches  the  spirits 
even  to  intoxication,  were  the  inspiration 
of  this  drama.  Shelley  while  an  Oxford 
student  was  a  voracious  reader ;  he  read 
at  all  times, — even  while  walking  the 
streets  and  when  a-bed. 

One  of  Moore's  descriptive  poems 
was  written  when  the  poet  visited  Norfolk 
in  Virginia.  It  is  founded  upon  the  follow- 
ing legend : — 

"  A  young  man  who  lost  his  mind,— said  to  have 
been  occasioned  by  the  death  of  a  beautiful  maiden 


1 60  The  Story  of  Some  Famous  Books. 

whom  he  loved, — suddenly  disappearing  from  his 
friends,  was  never  afterwards  heard  of.  As  he  had 
frequently  been  heard  to  say  that  the  girl  was  not 
dead,  but  gone  to  the  '  Dismal  Swamp,'  it  was 
believed  that  he  had  wandered  into  that  dreary 
wilderness,  and  had  perished  among  its  forest 
of  foliage,  or  its  dreadful  morasses." 

"They  made  her  a  grave  too  cold  and  damp  for  a 

soul  so  warm  and  true  ; 

And  she's  gone  to  the  '  Lake  of  the  Dismal  Swamp, ' 
where,  all  night  long,  by  a  fire-fly  lamp. 
She  paddles  her  white  canoe  !  " 

Moore  also,  during  his  passage  of  the 
St.  Lawrence  from  Kingston,  pencilled 
the  lines  (nearly  as  they  stand  in  his  works) 
of  the  Canadian  Boat-song  in  the  blank 
page  of  a  book  which  he  happened  to  have 
in  his  canoe. 

The  poet  wrote  his  famous  Lalla  Rookh 
in  his  cottage  near  Dovedale,  where  he 
also  composed  many  of  his  beautiful  songs 
and  melodies.  Concerning  this  poem, 
in  which  the  reader  is  transported  to  the 
palaces  of  Delhi  and  the  gardens  of 
Cashmere,  the  author  tells  us  that  he 
never  reached  to  the  height  of  his  own 
conception  until  the  thought  occurred  to 
him  of  embodying  in  his  work  the  per- 


Moore  and  Campbell.         161 

secuted  race  of  the  Ghebers  or  fire- 
worshippers,  who,  like  the  Irish,  had  long 
suffered  oppression. 

For  brevity  of  stature  Nature  seems 
to  have  more  than  compensated  the 
poet  with  high  intellect,  and  this  is  evinced 
in  the  splendour  of  his  imagery  and  the 
Oriental  magnificence  of  his  Oriental 
romances.  It  was  once  the  privilege 
of  the  writer  to  meet  together  the  two 
representative  bards,  Moore  and  Camp- 
bell,— two  "  bright  particular  stars  "  of 
the  first  magnitude.  The  one  has  sung 
to  us  of  the  gentle  passion  in  melliflu- 
ous strains,  and  the  other  has  given 
us  bright  visions  of  the  Pleasures  of  Hope, 
of  which  poem  a  brother-bard  has  said  : 
"  Whether  taken  as  a  whole  or  in  parts,  it 
is  to  be  preferred  to  any  didactic  poem  of 
equal  length  in  the  English  language." 
Campbell  wrote  it  at  Edinburgh,  when 
he  was  but  twenty-one  years  old,  and  so 
prolonged  was  its  popularity  that  it  ulti- 
mately brought  to  its  author  four  thousand 
five  hundred  pounds. 

"  Coming  home  to  my  house  one  evening,  in 
Park  Square,  where,  as  usual,  the  poet  had  dropped 

II 


1 62  The  Story  of  Some  Famous  Books. 

in  to  spend  a  quiet  hour,"  writes  his  biographer, 
"  I  told  him  that  I  had  been  agreeably  detained 
listening  to  some  street  music,  near  Portman 
Square.  '  Vocal  or  instrumental  ? '  he  enquired. 
'  Vocal, '  I  replied  ;  '  the  song  was  an  old  favourite, 
remarkably  good,  and  of  at  least  forty  years'  stand- 
ing.' '  Ha  ! '  said  he,  '  I  congratulate  the  author, 
whoever  he  is.'  '  And  so  do  I,'  I  responded  ;  '  it 
was  your  own  song,  '  The  Soldier's  Dream.'" 

Carlyle  was  "  an  indomitable  worker 
from  first  to  last."  "One  monster  there 
is  in  the  world,"  he  says, — "  the  idle  man." 
He  did  not  merely  preach  the  gospel  of 
work ;  he  was  it.  Each  of  his  review 
articles  cost  him  a  month  or  more  of 
serious  work.  Sartor  Resartus  cost  him 
nine  months,  the  French  Revolution  three 
years,  Cromwell  four  years,  Frederick  the 
Great  thirteen  years.  In  Past  and  Present, 
Carlyle  has  unconsciously  painted  his  own 
life  and  character  in  truer  colours  than 
has  any  one  else. 

"  His  books  are  not  easy  reading ;  they  are  a 
kind  of  wrestling  to  most  persons.  His  style  is 
like  a  road  made  of  rocks  ;  when  it  is  good  there 
is  nothing  like  it ;  and  when  it  is  bad,  there  is 
nothing  like  it.  During  his  last  great  work,— the 
thirteen  years  spent  in  his  study  at  the  top  of  his 
house,  writing  the  history  of  Frederick, — this  isola- 


Carlyle.  163 

tion,  this  incessant  toil  and  penitential  gloom,  were 
such  as  only  religious  devotees  have  voluntarily 
imposed  upon  themselves.  A  sort  of  anthro- 
pomorphic greed  and  hunger  possessed  him  always, 
an  insatiable  craving  for  strong,  picturesque  cha- 
racters, and  for  contact  and  conflict  with  them. 
This  was  his  ruling  passion  (and  it  amounted  to  a 
passion)  all  his  days.  He  fed  his  soul  on  heroes 
and  heroic  qualities,  and  all  his  literary  exploits 
were  a  search  for  these  things." ' 

The  French  Revolution  is  generally  con- 
sidered to  be  Carlyle's  greatest  production ; 
but  when  he  had  written  his  last  paragraph, 
the  author  said  : — 

"  What  they  will  do  with  this  book  none  knows, 
but  they  have  not  had  for  two  hundred  years 
any  book  that  came  more  truly  from  a  man's  very 
heart,  and  so  let  them  trample  it  under  foot  and 
hoof,  as  they  see  best." 

But  its  great  merits  were  not  discovered 
until  the  publication  of  his  Cromwell 
brought  to  him  popularity  and  fame  for 
both  works.  It  has  been  said  of  his  His- 
tory of  the  French  Rmolution  that — 

"  No  mere  industry,  nothing  but  native  genius, 
could  have  enabled  him  to  see  the  past  as  he  did, 
to  behold  the  actors  as  they  lived  and  suffered,  to 

1  Burroughs,  Fresh  Fields. 


1 64  The  Story  of  Some  Famous  Books. 

make  all  the  crowded  scene  visible  to  every  spec- 
tator, and  construct  the  whole  into  a  prose  epic, 
full  of  humour,  full  of  tragedy,  as  true  though  not 
as  musical  as  the  Iliad.'1'' ' 

Carlyle  has  been  not  inaptly  called  "  the 
Censor  of  the  Age ; "  his  criticisms  were 
often  harsh  and  severe,  yet  he  was  an 
astute  and  trenchant  critic.  Amidst  much 
laudation  from  the  highest  literary  sources, 
he  yet  was  the  subject  of  strictures  of  an 
opposite  kind  ;  for  instance,  we  are  con- 
fronted with  the  following  question,  pro- 
posed even  by  an  eminent  Scotch  critic: — 

"  Can  any  living  man  point  to  a  single  practical 
passage  in  any  of  his  volumes?  If  not,  what  is 
the  real  value  of  Mr.  Carlyle's  writings  ?  What  is 
Mr.  Carlyle  himself  but  a  phantasm  of  the  species 
he  is  pleased  to  denounce  ?  " 

We  shall  see  by  his  writings. 

One  of  the  most  eloquent  pieces  of 
word-painting  which  we  have  seen  from 
any  English  writer  is  the  following  extract 
from  Carlyle's  Sartor  Resartus : — 

"  '  I  look  down  into  all  that  wasp-nest  or  bee- 
hive,' have  we  heard  him  say,  '  and  witness  their 

1  Fraser's  Magazine. 


Carlyle's  "Sartor  Resartus?    165 

wax -laying,  and  honey-making,  and  poison-brewing, 
and  choking  by  sulphur.  From  the  palace  espla- 
nade, where  music  plays  while  His  Serene  Highness 
is  pleased  to  eat  his  victuals,  down  to  the  low  lane, 
where,  in  her  door-sill  the  aged  widow,  knitting 
for  a  thin  livelihood,  sits  to  feel  the  afternoon  sun. 
I  see  it  all ;  for,  except  the  Schlosskirche  weather- 
cock, no  biped  stands  so  high.  Couriers  arrive 
bestrapped  and  bebooted,  bearing  joy  and  sorrow 
bagged-up  in  pouches  of  leather  ;  there,  top-laden, 
and-  with  four  swift  horses,  rolls  in  the  country 
Baron  and  his  household;  here,  on  timber-leg, 
the  lamed  soldier  hops  painfully  along,  begging 
alms ;  a  thousand  carriages  and  wains  and  cars 
come  tumbling  in  with  food,  with  young  Rusticity 
and  other  raw  produce,  animate  or  inanimate,  and 
go  tumbling  out  again  with  produce  manufactured. 
That  living  flood,  pouring  through  these  streets,  of 
all  qualities  and  ages,  knowest  thou  whence  it  is 
coming,  whither  it  is  going  ?  Aus  der  Ewigkeit 
au  der  Ewigkeit  kin, — from  Eternity,  onwards  to 
Eternity!  These  are  apparitions, — what  else  ?  Are 
they  not  souls  rendered  visible  :  in  bodies,  that  took 
shape,  and  will  lose  it,  melting  into  air  ?  Their  solid 
pavement  is  a  picture  of  the  sense  ;  they  walk  on 
the  bosom  of  nothing,  blank  Time  is  behind  them 
and  before  them.  Or  fanciest  thou,  the  red  and 
yellow  clothes-screen  yonder,  with  spurs  on  its 
heels  and  feather  in  its  crown,  is  but  of  to-day, 
without  a  yesterday  or  to-morrow  ;  and  had  not 
rather  its  Ancestor  alive  when  Hengist  and  Horsa 
overran  thy  island  ?  Friend,  thou  seest  here  a 


1 66  TJie  Story  of  Some  Famous  Books, 

living  link  in  that  tissue  of  History,  which  inweaves 
all  being  :  watch  well,  or  it  will  be  past  thee,  and 
seen  no  more/' 

"  One  day  the  talk  fell  upon  his  books.  '  Poor 
old  Sartor !'  he  said.  'It's  a  book  in  which  I 
take  little  satisfaction  ;  really  a  book  worth  very 
little  as  a  work  of  art, — a  fragmentary,  disjointed, 
vehement  production.  It  was  written  when  I  was 
livin'  at  Craigenputtock,  one  o'  the  solitariest 
places  on  the  face  o'  the  earth  ;  a  wild  moorland 
place  where  one  might  lead  a  wholesome,  simple 
life,  and  might  labour  without  interruption,  and  be 
not  altogether  without  peace  such  as  London  can- 
not give.  We  were  quite  alone,  and  there  is  much 
that  is  beautiful  and  precious  in  them  as  I  look 
back  on  those  days.'  He  went  on  to  tell  of  the 
difficulties  he  had  in  getting  the  book  published, 
of  which  an  account  has  since  been  given  in  his 
Life,  and  of  the  lack  of  favour  with  which  it  was 
at  first  received,  and  then  he  said  :  '  But  it's  been 
so  with  all  my  books.  I've  had  little  satisfaction 
or  encouragement  in  the  doin'  of  them,  and  the 
most  satisfaction  I  can  get  out  of  them  now  is  the 
sense  of  havin' shouldered  a  heavy  burden  o'  work, 
an'  not  flinched  under  it.  I've  had  but  one  thing 
to  say  from  beginnin'  to  end  o'  them,  and  that  was 
that  there's  no  other  reliance  for  this  world  01 
any  other  but  just  the  Truth,  and  that  if  men  did 
not  want  to  be  damned  to  all  eternity,  they  had 
best  give  up  lyin'  and  all  kinds  o'  falsehood  ;  that 
the  world  was  far  gone  already  through  lyin',  and 


Carlyle.  167 

that  there's  no  hope  for  it  save  just  so  far  as  men 
find  out  and  believe  the  Truth,  and  match  their 
lives  to  it."1 

"  Ach,  mein  Lieber,"  said  he  once,  at  midnight, 
when  we  had  returned  from  the  coffee  house  in 
rather  earnest  talk,  "  it  is  a  true  sublimity  to  dwell 
here.  These  fringes  of  lamp-light,  struggling  up 
through  smoke  and  thousandfold  exhalation,  some 
fathoms  into  the  ancient  reign  of  Night,  what 
thinks  Bootes  of  them,  as  he  leads  his  hunting- 
dogs  over  the  Zenith  in  their  leash  of  sidereal  fire  ? 
That  stifled  hum  of  Midnight,  when  traffic  has  lain 
down  to  rest;  and  the  chariot  wheels  of  Vanity 
still  rolling  here  and  there  through  distant  streets, 
are  bearing  her  to  Halls  roofed-in,  and  lighted  to 
the  due  pitch  for  her ;  and  only  vice  and  misery, 
to  prowl  or  to  moan  like  night-birds,  are  abroad ; 
that  hum,  I  say,  like  the  stertorous,  unquiet 
slumber  of  sick  life,  is  heard  in  Heaven  !  Oh, 
under  that  hideous  coverlet  of  vapours  and  putre- 
factions and  unimaginable  gases,  what  a  ferment- 
ing vat  lies  simmering  and  hid  !  The  joyful  and 
the  sorrowful  are  there  ;  men  are  dying  there,  men 
are  being  born,  men  are  praying — on  the  other 
side  of  a  brick  partition,  men  are  cursing  ;  and 
around  them  all  is  the  vast,  void  Night.  The  proud 
grandee  still  lingers  in  his  perfumed  saloons,  or 
reposes  within  damask  curtains ;  wretchedness 
cowers  into  truckle-beds,  or  shivers,  hunger-stricken, 
into  its  lair  of  straw  ;  in  obscure  cellars,  rouge-et- 

'C.  E.  Norton. 


1 68  The  Story  of  Some  Famous  Books. 

noir  languidly  emits  its  voice-of-destiny  to  haggard 
hungry  villains  ;  while  councillors  of  state  sit 
plotting  and  playing  their  high  chess  game,  where- 
of the  pawns  are  men.  The  lover  whispers  his 
mistress  that  the  coach  is  ready ;  and  she,  full  of 
hope  and  fear,  glides  down  to  fly  with  him  over 
the  borders;  the  thief,  still  more  silently,  sets  to 
his  picklocks  and  crowbars,  or  lurks  in  wait  till  the 
watchmen  first  snore  in  their  boxes.  Gay  man- 
sions, with  supper-rooms  and  dancing-rooms,  are 
full  of  light  and  music,  and  high-swelling  hearts  ; 
but,  in  the  condemned  cells,  the  pulse  of  life  beats 
tremulous  and  faint,  and  blood-shot  eyes  look  out 
through  the  darkness." 

Carlyle's  knowledge  of  the  German 
language  was  such  as  to  place  him  in 
advance  of  any  of  his  contemporaries,  and 
this  caused  him  to  be  styled  a  literary 
Columbus,  since  he  opened  up  to  the 
English  reader  the  then  unknown  world 
of  German  thought.  And  it  will  not  be 
forgotten  that  to  Carlyle  has  been  reserved 
the  great  honour  of  replacing  in  the  pan- 
theon of  English  history  the  statue  of 
England's  greatest  ruler. 

We  are  all  familiar  with  Poe's  remarkable 
rhythmic  poem,  "The  Raven,"  but  we 
may  not  be  so  well  acquainted  with  its 
origin  or  its  author.  "  When  he  died,"  in 


Poe's  "Raven"  169 

1849,  wrote  his  biographer,  "literary  art 
lost  one  of  its  most  brilliant,  but  erratic 
stars."  He  was  at  all  times  a  dreamer, 
dwelling  in  ideal  realms,  peopled  with 
the  creatures  and  the  accidents  of  his 
brain.  The  poem  of  "  The  Raven  "  was 
probably  much  more  nearly  than  has  been 
supposed  a  reflection  and  an  echo  of  his 
own  history.  He  was  that  bird's — 

..."  Unhappy  master,  when  unmerciful  Disaster 
Followed  fast  and  followed  faster,  till  his  songs  one 

burden  bore—- 
Till the  dirges  of  his  Hope  that  melancholy  burden 

bore 

Of  never — never  more  ! " 

This  remarkable  poem  was  written,  it  is 
stated,  under  very  afflictive  circumstances, 
while  the  poet's  wife  was  rapidly  wasting 
away  with  consumption  at  his  humble 
cottage  at  Bloomingdale,  New  York.  It 
was  a  spontaneous  inspiration  of  the  sur- 
roundings at  the  time. 

Among  earlier  American  bards  we  in- 
stance Dana,  whose  imaginative  poem, 
"  The  Culprit  Fay,"  so  replete  with  poetic 
beauty,  is  a  fairy  tale  of  the  highlands  of 
the  Hudson.  The  origin  of  the  poem  is 


170  The  Story  of  Some  Famous  Books. 

traced  to  a  conversation  with  Cooper  the 
novelist,  and  Fitz-Greene  Halleck  the 
poet,  who,  speaking  of  the  Scottish  streams 
and  their  legendary  associations,  insisted 
that  the  American  rivers  were  not  suscep- 
tible of  like  poetic  treatment.  Dana 
thought  otherwise,  and  to  make  his  posi- 
tion good,  produced  three  days  after  this 
poem. 

Of  the  poems  of  William  C.  Bryant, 
perhaps  that  best  known  is  his  "  Thana- 
topsis,"  written  when  he  was  in  his  nine- 
teenth year,  and  first  printed  in  the  North 
American  Review  for  1817,  although  only 
about  half  of  the  poem  as  we  now  have  it 
was  then  given.  Like  the  familiar  poems 
of  Longfellow,  this  early  production,  with 
others,  of  Bryant  will  become  classic. 

One  of  the  most  eminent  of  American 
historical  writers,  W.  H.  Prescott,  when 
young,  met  with  an  accident  which  greatly 
impaired  his  eyesight ;  but,  notwithstand- 
ing this  difficulty,  with  the  aid  of  a 
noctograph  he  devoted  himself  to  his- 
torical studies.  His  first  work  was  his 
History  of  the  Reign  of  Ferdinand  and 
Isabella,  which  occupied  him  twelve  years, 


"  Uncle  Tom's  Cabin"        1 7 1 

and  was  published  in  1838.  This  work  at 
once  established  his  reputation  as  one  of 
the  foremost  of  living  historians. 

J.  Fenimore  Cooper  published  in  1821 
The  Spy,  a  novel  founded  on  an  incident 
said  to  have  happened  in  the  great  war  of 
American  independence.  Few  first  works 
of  an  author  have  been  equally  successful, 
either  in  America  or  England.  It  exhi- 
bited to  the  reader  new  characters  and 
scenes,  depicted  with  great  clearness  and 
picturesque  effect.  Cooper  produced  a 
succession  of  somewhat  similar  works  for 
nearly  thirty  years,  until  his  death  in  1851. 
His  Last  of  the  Mohicans  has  been  con- 
sidered his  masterpiece. 

Every  person  has,  it  is  presumed,  read 
or  heard  of  Mrs.  Stowe's  Uncle  Tom's 
Cabin,  and  it  is  only  necessary  to 
refer  to  its  origin.  It  was  commenced  in 
1851,  as  a  serial  story  of  southern  slave- 
life,  in  the  National  Era  of  Washington. 
When  completed  in  1852,  it  was  pub- 
lished at  Boston  in  book  form,  and  its 
popularity  was  so  prodigious,  both  in 
England  and  the  United  States,  that 
over  a  million  copies  were  sold,  and 


1 72  Tlte  Story  of  Some  Famous  Books. 

many  translations  also  were  published  in 
Europe. 

Of  the  personal  history  of  that  poet  of 
the  people,  Tom  Hood,  whose  memory, 
it  has  been  said,  is  "emblazoned  with  a 
halo  of  light-hearted  mirth  and  pleasantry," 
we  do  not  know  so  much  as  we  desire. 
Yet  we  may  gather  something  of  his 
genial  nature  from  the  deep  human  sym- 
pathies which  characterise  many  of  his 
productions.  If  he  was  "  the  prince  of 
punsters,"  he  was  no  less  the  poet  of 
pathos.  Of  Hood  it  may  be  said  that 
he  literally  "  learned  in  suffering  what  he 
taught  in  song,"  for  his  whole  life  seems 
to  have  been  a  lingering  sickness.  Re- 
ferring to  his  own  physical  debility,  he 
thus  writes : — 

"That  man  who  has  never  known  a  day's  ill- 
ness is  a  moral  dunce,  one  who  has  lost  the 
greatest  moral  lesson  in  life, — who  has  skipped 
the  finest  lecture  in  that  great  school  of  humanity, 
the  sick  chamber.  Let  him  be  versed  in  meta- 
physics, profound  in  mathematics,  a  ripe  scholar  in 
the  classics,  a  bachelor  of  arts,  or  even  a  doctor 
in  divinity,  yet  he  is  one  of  those  gentlemen  whose 
education  has  been  neglected.  For  all  his  college 
acquirements,  how  inferior  he  is  in  wholesome 


Thomas  Hood.  173 

knowledge  to  the  mortal  who  has  had  a  quarter's 
gout,  or  a  half  year  of  ague  ;  how  infinitely  below 
the  fellow-creature  who  has  been  soundly  taught 
his  tic-douloureux,  thoroughly  grounded  in  rheuma- 
tism, and  deeply  red  in  the  scarlet  fever  !  " 

"  There  were  scarcely  any  events  in  the  life  of 
Thomas  Hood  ;  but  one  condition  there  was 
of  too  potent  determining  importance, — life-long 
ill-health  ;  and  one  circumstance  of  moment, — a 
commercial  failure,  and  consequent  expatriation. 
Beyond  this,  little  presents  itself  for  record  in  the 
outward  facts  of  his  upright  and  beneficial  career, 
bright  with  genius  and  corruscating  with  wit,  dark 
with  the  lengthening  and  deepening  shadow  of 
death." 

In  1826  Hood  published  his  first  series 
of  Whims  and  Oddities;  the  volume  that 
followed  contained  "  The  Plea  for  the  Mid- 
summer Fairies,"  and  "  Hero  and  Leander," 
with  some  others.  In  1829  appeared  one 
of  the  most  famous  of  all  Hood's  poems 
of  a  narrative  character,  "  The  Dream  of 
Eugene  Aram."  Equally  a  master  in  the 
comic  and  the  tragic  muse,  he  has  alike 
charmed  us  with  his  touching  pathos  as 
with  his  wit  and  humour.  His  "  bound- 
lessly whimsical  idiosyncrasy  "  was  doubt- 
less born  with  him  ;  but  it  is  supposed  its 


The  Story  of  Some  Famous  Books. 

development  may  be  traced,  in  part  at 
least,  to  his  early  reading  of  Humphrey 
Clinker,  Tristram  Shandy,  Tom  Jones,  and 
other  works  of  that  period.  In  1841 
Hood  succeeded  Theodore  Hook  in  the 
editorship  of  the  New  Monthly  Magazine. 
Hood's  poems  are  all  good,  but  among 
his  most  famous  may  be  named,  "The 
Plea  for  the  Midsummer  Fairies,"  "The 
Dream  of  Eugene  Aram,"  "  The  Bridge  of 
Sighs,"  "The  Haunted  House,"  and 
"  The  Song  of  the  Shirt,"  which  last  was 
written  in  one  evening,  and  came  out 
anonymously  in  the  Christmas  number 
of  Punch  for  1843  ;  "  it  ran  like  wildfire, 
and  rang  like  a  tocsin  through  the  land." 
And  yet,  when  he  wrote  it,  he  thought  so 
little  of  its  merit  that  he  was  about  to 
throw  it  into  the  waste-basket,  but  was 
prevented  by  his  wife,  who  told  him  it 
was  the  best  thing  he  had  written.  The 
world  has  endorsed  her  verdict,  and,  on 
his  monument  in  Kensal  Green  Cemetery, 
are  the  words  inscribed,  "  He  sang  the 
'Song  of  the  Shirt.'"  The  editor  of 
Punch,  looking  over  his  letters  one  morn- 
ing, opened  an  envelope  inclosing  a  poem 


Hood's  "Song  of  the  Shirt?    175 

which  the  writer  said  had  been  rejected 
by  three  London  journals.  He  begged 
the  editor  to  consign  it  to  the  waste-paper 
basket  if  it  was  not  thought  suitable  for 
Punch,  as  the  author  was  "  sick  of  the 
sight  of  it."  The  poem  was  signed  "  Tom 
Hood,"  and  was  entitled  "The  Song  of 
the  Shirt." 

It  was  submitted  to  the  weekly  meeting 
of  the  editor  and  principal  contributors, 
several  of  whom  opposed  its  publication 
as  unsuitable  to  the  pages  of  a  comic 
journal.  Mr.  Lemon,  however,  was  so 
firmly  impressed  with  its  beauty  that  he 
published  it. 


VII. 

MRS.  BROWNING. — WASHINGTON  IRVING. 
—  HAWTHORNE.  —  LONGFELLOW.  — • 
HOLMES. — WHITTIER. — TENNYSON. 

|HE  life-story  of  the  gifted  au- 
thoress Mrs.  Elizabeth  Barrett 
Browning  is  as  touchingly  in- 
teresting as  it  is  romantic.  When  only 
sixteen  years  old,  she  published  her  "  Essay 
on  Mind  and  other  Poems ; "  ten  years 
later  she  became  an  invalid  by  the  rupture 
of  a  blood-vessel ;  this  necessitated  her 
removal  from  London  to  the  sea  coast. 
Her  brother,  with  other  relatives,  accom- 
panied her  to  Torquay,  and  there  occurred 
the  fatal  event  which  saddened  her  youth, 
and  gave  to  her  poetry  a  deeper  hue  of 
thought  and  devotional  feeling.  One 
summer  morning  her  brother,  with  two 
young  friends,  embarked  on  board  a  small 
sailing-vessel ;  they  were  all  said  to  be 


Mrs.  Browning.  177 

good  sailors  and  familiar  with  the  coast, 
and  yet  but  a  few  minutes  after  leaving 
shore,  and  in  sight  of  their  very  windows, 
as  they  were  crossing  the  bar,  the  boat 
went  down,  and  all  who  were  in  her 
perished  !  Even  the  bodies  were  never 
recovered.  This  sad  event  nearly  killed 
poor  Elizabeth  Barrett,  for  she  was  haunted 
with  the  feeling  that  she  had  been  in  some 
way  the  cause  of  the  terrible  tragedy. 
Still,  she  clung  to  her  literary  pursuits, 
finding  relief  from  suffering  and  diversion 
from  the  painful  memory  in  her  muse. 
On  her  return  to  her  home  in  London  her 
life  for  many  years  was  that  of  a  confirmed 
and  seemingly  hopeless  invalid.  Virtually 
exiled  from  society,  for  she  saw  but  few 
friends,  her  silent  companions  were  a 
Hebrew  Bible,  many  Greek  writers  with 
Plato  at  their  head,  and  no  small  range 
of  polyglot  reading.  Thus  the  long  and 
dreary  hours  of  her  illness  were  soothed 
by  composition  and  study,  even  of  authors 
of  abstruse  and  profound  learning.  In 
1844  the  first  collected  edition  of  her 
poems  was  published,  in  two  volumes 
In  this  edition  appeared  for  the  first 

12 


1/8  The  Story  of  Some  Famous  Books. 

time  "  Lady  Geraldine's  Courtship,"  one 
of  her  most  popular  poems,  and  yet 
written  by  her,  it  is  stated,  in  the  incre- 
dibly brief  space  of  twelve  hours  !  After 
her  recovery  to  comparative  health,  and 
her  somewhat  romantic  marriage  with  Mr. 
Robert  Browning,  her  residence  was  at 
Florence,  where  it  continued  to  be  for 
about  fourteen  years.  It  was  here,  in  1851, 
she  produced  the  poem  called,  after  her 
Italian  home,  "Casa  Guidi  Windows," 
devoted  to  the  political  affairs  of  Italy ; 
and  five  years  later  appeared  her  beau- 
tiful narrative  poem,  in  nine  books,  which 
she  named  "Aurora  Leigh,"  a  series  of 
romantic  sketches  of  modern  English  life 
and  characters. 

' '  One  or  two  of  her  poems  may  be  indicated, 
as  '  The  Cry  of  the  Children,'  which  for  pathos 
may  take  rank  with  Hood's  '  Song  of  the  Shirt,' 
and  her  fine  poem,  '  Aurora  Leigh,'  which,  being 
more  natural  or  less  metaphysical,  has  made 
its  appeal  more  successfully  to  the  common  heart. 
Her  '  Lady  Geraldine's  Courtship,'  also,  at  once 
became  popular,  and  deservedly  so,  for  it  is  a 
charming  poem,  although  it  was  the  product  of 
only  about  twelve  hours.  Her  life-story  is  a  shaded 
one  until  her  union  with  the  poet  Browning, 


Washington  Irving.          179 

when  married  relations  seemed  to  inspire  her 
with  new  ambition,  as  well  as  happiness.  Her 
cloister-life  of  maidenhood  in  England  was  at  an 
end ;  fifteen  happy  and  illustrious  years  in  Italy 
lay  before  her  ;  and  in  her  case  the  proverb, 
Ccelum  non  animum,  was  unfulfilled.  Never  was 
there  a  more  complete  transmutation  of  the  habits 
and  sympathies  of  life  than  that  which  she  ex- 
perienced beneath  the  blue  Italian  skies.  Still, 
before  all  and  above  all,  her  refined  soul  remained 
in  allegiance  to  the  eternal  muse. "  ' 

Washington  Irving  and  Wilkie  the 
painter  were  fellow-travellers  on  the  Con- 
tinent, about  the  year  1827.  In  their 
rambles  about  some  of  the  old  cities  of 
Spain  they  were  more  than  once  struck 
with  scenes  and  incidents  which  reminded 
them  of  passages  in  the  Arabian  Nights 
Entertainments.  The  painter  urged  Irving 
to  write  something  that  should  illustrate 
those  peculiarities,  "something  in  the 
Haroun-al-Raschid  style,"'  which  should 
have  much  of  that  Arabian  spice  which 
pervades  everything  in  Spain.  The  author 
set  to  work  con  amore,  and  produced  two 
goodly  volumes  of  Arabesque  sketches 
and  tales,  founded  on  popular  traditions 
1  Stedman's  Victorian  Poets. 


1 80  The  Story  of  Some  Famous  Books. 

and  legends.  Irving's  study  was  an 
apartment  assigned  to  him,  by  privilege, 
in  the  Alhambra  itself,  by  the  courtesy 
of  the  Governor.  Wilkie  had  to  leave  for 
London  soon  after,  but  Irving  remained 
for  several  months  spell-bound  in  the 
enchanted  building. 

"  How  many  legends,"  wrote  he,  "  and  traditions, 
true  and  fabulous, — how  many  songs  and  romances, 
Spanish  and  Arabian,  of  love,  and  war,  and  chi- 
valry, are  associated  with  this  old  historic  pile. 
It  was  my  endeavour  scrupulously  to  depict  its 
half  Spanish,  half  Oriental  character,  its  mixture 
of  the  heroic,  the  poetic,  and  the  grotesque, — to 
revive  the  traces  of  grace  and  beauty  fast  fading 
from  its  walls,  to  record  the  regal  and  chivalrous 
traditions  concerning  those  who  once  trod  its 
courts,  and  the  whimsical  and  superstitious  legends 
of  the  motley  race  now  burrowing  among  its 
ruins. " 

In  one  of  his  letters  Irving  thus  refers 
to  his  love  for  Spanish  legendary  lore  : — 

"  They  have  a  charm  for  me,  having  so  much 
that  is  high-minded  and  chivalrous,  and  quaint, 
picturesque,  and  adventurous,  and  at  times  half 
comic  about  them." 

Mr.  Irving,  when  in  Spain,  delighted  to 
run  over  the  courts  of  the  Alhambra  and 


Knickerbockers  "New  York"    1 8 1 

pick  up  fragments  of  legendary  literature 
connected  with  the  chivalry  of  Castile  and 
Toledo.  When  at  Madrid,  and  engaged 
on  his  Life  of  Columbus,  he  used  to  write 
from  twelve  to  fourteen  hours  a  day  ;  and, 
to  use  his  own  words  : — 

"  He  never  found  outside  of  the  walls  of  his 
study,  any  enjoyment  equal  to  sitting  at  his  writing 
desk." 

Wrote  Irving  in  one  of  his  charming 
letters  from  Madrid  : — 

.  "I  pass  most  of  my  mornings  in  the  library  of 
the  Jesuits'  College  of  St.  Isidore.  You  cannot 
think  what  a  delight  I  feel  in  passing  through  its 
galleries  filled  with  old,  parchment-bound  books. 
It  is  a  perfect  wilderness  of  curiosity  to  me.  What 
a  deep-felt  quiet  luxury  there  is  in  delving  into  the 
rich  ore  of  these  old,  neglected  volumes.  How 
these  hours  of  uninterrupted  intellectual  enjoy- 
ment, so  tranquil  and  independent,  repay  one  for 
the  ennui  and  disappointment  too  often  experienced 
in  the  intercourse  of  society  !  " 

In  the  author's  "  Apology "  to  his 
Knickerbocker's  History  of  New  York  we 
read  that  this  famous  production  originated 
in  the  idea  of  satirising  a  small  handbook, 
which  had  then  just  appeared,  entitled 
A  Picture  of  New  York. 


1 8  2  The  Story  of  Some  Famous  Books. 

'•  Like  that,  our  work,"  writes  Mr.  Irving, 
"  was  to  begin  with  an  historical  sketch  ;  to  be 
followed  by  notices  of  the  customs,  manners,  and 
institutions  of  the  city;  written  in  a  serio-comic 
vein,  and  treating  local  errors,  follies,  and  abuses 
with  good-natured  satire.  To  burlesque  the 
pedantic  lore  displayed  in  certain  American  works, 
our  historical  sketch  was  to  commence  with  the 
creation  of  the  world ;  and  we  laid  all  kinds  of 
works  under  contribution  for  trite  citations,  rele- 
vant or  irrelevant,  to  give  it  the  proper  air  of 
learned  research.  Before  this  crude  mass  of  mock 
erudition  could  be  digested  into  form,  my  brother 
departed  for  Europe,  and  I  was  left  to  prosecute 
the  enterprise  alone.  I  now  altered  the  plan  of 
the  work  :  discarding  all  idea  of  a  parody  on  the 
Picture  of  New  York,  I  determined  that  what  had 
been  originally  intended  as  an  introductory  sketch, 
should  comprise  the  whole  work,  and  form  a  comic 
history  of  the  city.  I  accordingly  moulded  the 
mass  of  citations  and  disquisitions  into  introductory 
chapters,  forming  the  first  books;  but  it  soon  became 
evident  to  me,  that,  like  Robinson  Crusoe  with  his 
boat,  I  had  begun  on  too  large  a  scale,  and  that, 
to  launch  my  history  successfully,  I  must  reduce  its 
proportions.  I  accordingly  resolved  to  confine  it 
to  the  period  of  the  Dutch  domination,  which, 
in  its  rise,  progress,  and  decline,  presented  that 
unity  of  subject  required  by  classic  rule.  This, 
then,  broke  upon  me  as  the  poetic  age  of  our 
city, — poetic  from  its  very  obscurity ;  and  open, 
like  the  early  and  obscure  days  of  ancient  Rome, 
to  all  the  embellishments  of  heroic  fiction. " 


Washington  Irving.         183 

Of  Irving's  inimitable  Sketch  Book  little 
need  be  said,  except  that  the  papers  it 
comprises  were,  with  two  exceptions, 
written  in  England.  These  papers  or 
essays  were  issued  in  serial  form  at  first, 
and  afterwards  collected  into  two  volumes. 
The  critical  acumen  of  the  publishers  was, 
however,  sadly  at  fault,  for  until  Scott 
interfered  in  their  behalf,  they  awaited 
some  agent  to  introduce  them  to  the 
public.  Mr.  Murray,  however,  was  wise 
and  shrewd  enough  to  do  this  service, 
greatly  to  the  success  of  the  work  and  the 
satisfaction  of  the  author  and  himself. 

It  is  a  point  on  which  professional 
writers  are  far  from  agreeing  as  to  how 
far  one  must  depend  upon  "  moods  " 
for  doing  the  best  literary  work.  No 
writer  was  a  greater  slave  to  moods  than 
Washington  Irving,  who  confessed  his  in- 
ability to  do  justice  to  himself,  or  to  any 
subject,  except  when  he  "  felt  like  it." 
When  he  was  once  at  work  he  hardly  gave 
himself  time  for  rest  and  refreshment 
until  the  task  before  him  was  completed, 
or,  as  he  said,  until  his  "  brain  was  wrung 
dry."  His  Bracebridge  Hall  was  written 


184  The  Story  of  Some  Famous  Books. 

in    a    mood,    however,    that    lasted    six 
weeks. 

Mr.  Irving's  poetic  temperament  and 
love  of  romance  found  scope  for  their  dis- 
play in  the  chapters  of  his  Sketch  Book 
entitled  "  Rip  Van  Winkle,"  "  The  Spectre 
Bridegroom,"  and  "  The  Legend  of  Sleepy 
Hollow."  These  were  suggested  to  their 
author  by  the  legendary  lore  of  the  Rhine 
and  the  Hartz  Mountains.  His  own  words 
sufficiently  evince  his  fondness  for  adven- 
ture and  travel ;  hence  the  character  of  his 
sketches  of  subjects  quaint  and  somewhat 
unsought  by  other  writers.  He  says  : — 

"  I  was  always  fond  of  visiting  new  scenes,  and 
observing  strange  characters  and  manners.  I  made 
myself  familiar  with  places  famous  in  history  or 
fable.  I  had  beside  this  a  desire  to  see  the  great 
men  of  the  earth,  and  it  has  been  my  lot  to  have 
my  roving  passion  gratified." 

Referring,  on  one  occasion,  to  the 
success  of  his  Sketch  Book,  Irving  said : — 

"  The  writing  of  those  stories  was  so  unlike 
an  inspiration,  so  utterly  without  any  feeling  of 
confidence  which  could  be  prophetic  of  their 
popularity. " 

Walking  with  his  brother  one  dull  day 


Washington  Irving.         185 

over  Westminster  Bridge,  he  got  to  telling 
the  old  Dutch  stories  which  he  had  heard 
at  Tarrytown  in  his  youth,  when  the 
thought  suddenly  struck  him, — I'll  make 
a  memoranda  of  these  for  a  book. 
Leaving  his  brother  soon  after,  he  went 
back  to  his  lodgings,  and  jotted  down 
all  the  data  ;  and  the  next  day — in 
one  of  the  darkest  of  London  fogs — he 
wrote  out  his  "  Legend  of  Sleepy 
Hollow." 

The  paucity  of  data  which  confronts 
us  concerning  the  inception  or  origin  of 
many  notable  books  may,  doubtless,  be 
accounted  for,  to  some  extent  at  least, 
by  the  fact  that  when  their  authors  com- 
menced to  write  them  they  either  did  not 
think  it  worth  while  to  put  upon  record 
the  circumstances  that  prompted  or  sug- 
gested them  to  write,  or  else  they  did  not, 
at  the  outset,  foresee  the  proportions  to 
which  their  work  was  destined  to  attain, 
— "  they  builded  better  than  they  knew." 
It  is  also  to  be  remembered  that  many 
works  of  celebrity  have  been  the  result, 
or  rather  the  embodiment,  of  papers  or 
essays  that  had  previously  been  published 


1 86  The  Story  of  Some  Famous  Books. 

in  the  serial  or  periodical  form,  as  in 
the  well-known  instances  of  Dickens  and 
Thackeray,  as  well  as  of  Hawthorne,  and 
many  others.  The  last  named  had,  like 
the  others  referred  to,  attained  to  great 
popularity  as  a  writer  in  the  literary 
magazines,  before  he  collected  his  fugi- 
tive contributions  into  volumes.  Of  his 
Twice-told  Tales  the  author  himself 
wrote  : — 

"  The  sketches  are  not,  it  is  hardly  necessary  to 
say,  profound  ;  but  it  is  rather  more  remarkable 
that  they  so  seldom,  if  ever,  show  any  design  on 
the  writer's  part  to  make  them  so." 

The  thoughtful  reader  of  these  volumes 
will  scarcely  acquiesce,  however,  with  this 
modest  estimate  of  them.  Of  all  Haw- 
thorne's productions,  his  most  dramatic 
and  popular  book  is,  doubtless,  The 
Scarlet  Letter.  In  the  author's  introduc- 
tion to  the  work,  the  reader  will  find  a 
detailed  account  of  the  discovery  of  the 
"  scarlet  letter  "  in  an  upper  apartment  of 
the  Salem  Custom  House,  among  heaps 
of  old  musty  documents  and  manuscripts 
of  various  kinds,  and  some  of  a  personal 
kind. 


Hawthorne's  "Scarlet  Letter"    187 

"  But  the  object  that  most  drew  my  attention 
was  a  mysterious  package  of  fine  red  cloth,  much 
worn  and  faded.  There  were  traces  about  it  of 
gold  embroidery,  wrought  with  wonderful  skill ; 
and  on  it  was  the  letter  A.  In  the  absorbing  con- 
templation of  the  scarlet  letter,  I  had  hitherto 
neglected  to  examine  a  small  roll  of  dingy  paper, 
around  which  it  had  been  twisted.  This  I  now 
opened,  and  had  the  satisfaction  to  find,  recorded 
by  the  old  surveyor's  pen,  a  reasonably  complete 
explanation  of  the  whole  affair." 

Plausible  as  reads  this  statement,  there 
is  said  to  be  no  reality  in  it,  but  that  it 
is  simply  the  product  of  the  author's  brain. 
When,  during  1858,  he  visited  Italy,  he 
wrote  The  Marble  Fawn,  while  residing  in 
a  spacious  antique  house  in  Florence. 
While  Hawthorne  was  disgusted  with 
Rome,  he  seems  to  have  been  enchanted 
with  Florence,  her  memories  and  art- 
treasures.  But  to  return  to  The  Scarlet 
Letter,  and  here  we  cite  from  Mr.  Field, 
his  publisher : — 

"  In  the  winter  of  1849,  after  he  had  been  ejected 
from  the  Custom  House,  I  went  down  to  Salem  to 
see  him  and  inquire  after  his  health.  He  was  then 
living  in  a  modest  wooden  house ;  and  we  fell  into 
talk  about  his  future  prospects,  and  he  was,  as  I 


1 8  8  The  Story  of  Some  Famous  Books. 

feared  I  should  find  him,  in  a  very  desponding 
mood." 

He  seemed  to  give  up  the  hope  of  suc- 
ceeding as  a  writer ;  but  when  his  visitor 
was  in  the  act  of  leaving,  he  handed  to 
him  a  roll  of  manuscript,  requesting  him 
to  take  it  to  Boston,  and  examine  and 
report  upon  it ;  adding,  "  It  is  either  very 
good  or  very  bad,  I  don't  know  which." 

"  '  On  my  way  back  to  Boston,'  says  Mr.  Field, 
'  I  read  the  germ  of  The  Scarlet  Letter  ;  and  before 
I  slept  that  night  I  wrote<him  a  note  all  aglow  with 
admiration  of  the  marvellous  story  he  had  put  into 
my  hands,  and  told  him  that  I  would  come  again 
into  Salem  the  next  day  and  arrange  for  its  publi- 
cation. Hawthorne  seemed  to  think  I  was  beside 
myself,  and  laughed  sadly  at  my  enthusiasm.'  " 

He  went  on  with  the  book  and  finished 
it ;  and  in  a  letter  to  another  friend, — 

"  I  finished  my  book  only  yesterday  ;  one  end 
being  in  the  press  at  Boston,  while  the  other  was 
in  my  head  here  at  Salem, — so  that,  as  you  see, 
my  story  is  at  least  fourteen  miles  long.  My  pub- 
lisher speaks  of  it  in  tremendous  terms  of  approba- 
tion ;  so  does  Mrs.  Hawthorne,  to  whom  I  read  the 
conclusion  last  night.  It  broke  her  heart,  and 
sent  her  to  bed  with  a  grievous  headache,  which  I 
look  upon  as  a  triumphant  success." 


Longfellow 's  "Evangeline"     189 

If  Hawthorne  was  in  a  sombre  mood, 
and  if  his  future  was  painfully  vague,  his 
book  seems,  if  not  to  have  been  born, 
at  least  to  have  shared  in  his  gloomy 
shadows,  for  the  tragic  story  is  unrelieved 
by  a  single  ray  of  sunshine  or  mitigation 
of  sorrow. 

The  origin  of  the  poet's  Evangeline  has 
been  thus  given  in  the  Atlantic : — 

"  Hawthorne,  dining  one  day  with  Longfellow, 
brought  with  him  a  friend  from  Salem.  After 
dinner  this  friend  said,  '  I  have  been  trying  to 
persuade  Hawthorne  to  write  a  story  based  upon 
a  legend  of  Acadie,  and  still  current  there;  the 
legend  of  a  girl  who,  in  the  dispersion  of  the 
Acadians,  was  separated  from  her  lover,  and  passed 
her  life  in  waiting  and  seeking  for  him,  and  only 
found  him  dying  in  a  hospital,  when  both  were 
old.  Longfellow  wondered  that  this  legend  did 
not  strike  the  fancy  of  Hawthorne,  and  said  to 
him,  '  If  you  really  have  made  up  your  mind  not  to 
use  it  for  a  story,  will  you  give  it  to  me  for  a  poem  ? ' 
To  this  he  assented,  and  promised  not  to  treat  it 
in  prose  till  Longfellow  had  seen  what  he  could  do 
with  it  in  verse." 

In  his  diary,  under  date  of  December 
6th,  1838,  Mr.  Longfellow  writes : — 

"  A  beautiful  holy  morning  within  me.     I  was 


1 90  The  Story  of  Some  Famous  Books. 

softly  excited,  I  knew  not  why,  and  wrote  with 
peace  in  my  heart,  and  not  without  tears  in  my 
eyes,  '  The  Reaper  and  the  Flowers,  a  Psalm  of 
Death.'  I  have  had  an  idea  of  this  kind  in  my 
mind  for  a  long  time,  without  finding  any  expres- 
sion for  it  in  words.  This  morning  it  seemed 
to  crystallise  at  once,  without  any  effort  of  my 
own." 

"The  Skeleton  in  Armour"  was  suggested 
to  him,  Mr.  Longfellow  informs  us,  while 
he  was  riding  on  the  seashore  at  Newport. 
A  year  or  two  previous  to  his  visit  a 
skeleton  had  been  dug  up  at  Fall  River, 
clad  in  armour,  which  was  corroded  and 
broken ;  and  the  idea  occurred  to  the 
poet  of  connecting  this  discovery  with 
the  Round  Tower  at  Newport, — generally 
known  hitherto  as  the  Old  Windmill, 
though  now  claimed  by  the  Danes  as 
a  work  of  their  early  ancestors.  His 
"  Hyperion  "  and  "  Voices  of  the  Night " 
were  written  at  his  home  in  Cambridge. 
"  The  Hymn  of  the  Moravian  Nuns  "  he 
wrote  while  at  college.  He  says  : — 

"  I  read  in  a  newspaper  a  story  that  the  Mora- 
vian women  at  Bethlehem  had  embroidered  a 
banner  and  presented  it  to  Pulaski.  The  story 
made  an  impression  upon  my  mind,  and  one  idle 


"  The  Song  of  Hiawatha''     1 9 1 

day  I  wrote  the  poem.  I  called  them  Moravian 
nuns,  because  I  had  gathered  from  something  I  had 
heard  or  read  that  they  were  called  nuns.  I  sup- 
pose I  should  have  said  Moravian  Sisters,  but  the 
change  does  not  spoil  the  romance.  I  often  felt  a 
curiosity  to  go  and  see  the  people  whose  patriotic 
action  furnished  the  theme  for  this  poem,  and 
whose  peculiar  costumes  and  steady  thrift  have 
gained  them  the  admiration  of  the  world." 

"The  Song  of  Hiawatha" — an  Indian 
Edda — is  founded  on  a  tradition  preva- 
lent among  the  North  American  tribes, 
of  a  personage  of  miraculous  birth,  who 
was  sent  among  them  to  clear  their 
rivers,  forests,  and  fishing-grounds,  and  to 
teach  them  the  arts  of  peace.  According 
to  the  legend  he  was  known  among  the 
different  tribes  by  various  names,  such  as 
the  following, — Michabou,  Chiabo,  Mana- 
bozo,  and  Hiawatha.  Mr.  Schoolcraft, 
in  his  Algic  Researches,  gives  an  account 
of  him,  derived  from  the  verbal  narrations 
of  an  Onondaga  chief.  In  Professor 
Longfellow's  poem  other  curious  Indian 
legends  have  been  interwoven  with  the 
above.  The  scene  of  the  poem  is 
among  the  Ojibways,  on  the  southern 


192  The  Story  of  Some  Famous  Books. 

shore  of  Lake  Superior,  in  the  region 
between  the  Pictured  Rocks  and  the 
Grand  Sable. 

His  biographer  thus  relates  the  one 
great  tragedy  that  left  its  traces  on  the 
gentle  and  beautiful  life  of  the  poet :  — 

"  There  is  a  break  in  the  journal  here  ;  and 
then  these  lines  of  Tennyson,  added  many  days 
after  : — 

"  '  Sleep  sweetly,  tender  heart,  in  peace  ! 

Sleep,  holy  spirit,  blessed  soul ! 
While  the  stars  burn,  the  moons  increase, 
And  the  great  ages  onward  roll.' 

"The  break  in  the  journal  marked  a  break  in 
his  very  life  ;  an  awful  chasm  that  suddenly, 
and  without  the  slightest  warning,  opened  at 
his  feet."1 

"  On  July  Qth  his  wife  was  sitting  in  the  library, 
with  her  two  little  girls,  engaged  in  sealing  up 
some  small  packages  of  their  curls  which  she  had 
just  cut  off.  From  a  match  fallen  upon  the  floor 
her  light  summer  dress  caught  fire.  The  shock 
was  too  great,  and  she  died  the  next  morning. 
Three  days  later  her  burial  took  place  at  Mount 
Auburn.  It  was  the  anniversary  of  her  marriage- 
day  ;  and  on  her  beautiful  head,  lovely  and 
unmarred  in  death,  some  hand  had  placed  a  wreath 

1  Longfellow's  Memoirs  of  the  Poet. 


Longfellow.  193 

of  orange  blossoms.  Her  husband  was  not  there 
— confined  to  his  chamber  by  the  severe  burns 
which  he  had  himself  received. 

'•  These  wounds  healed  with  time.  Time  could 
only  assuage,  never  heal,  the  deeper  wounds  that 
burned  within.  This  terrible  bereavement,  made 
more  terrible  by  the  shock  of  the  suddenness  and 
the  manner  of  it,  well-nigh  crushed  him.  Friends 
gathered  round,  and  letters  of  sympathy  poured  in 
upon  him  from  every  quarter,  as  the  sad  intelligence 
flashed  over  the  land  and  sea.  He  bore  his  grief 
with  courage  and  in  silence.  Only  after  months 
had  passed  could  he  speak  of  it  ;  and  then  only  in 
fewest  words.  To  a  brother  far  distant  he  wrote  : 
'  And  now,  of  what  we  both  are  thinking,  I  can 
write  no  word.  God's  will  be  done.'  To  a 
visitor,  who  expressed  the  hope  that  he  might  be 
enabled  to  '  bear  his  cross '  with  patience,  he  re- 
plied :  '  Bear  the  cross,  yes ;  but  what  if  one  is 
stretched  upon  it  ! '  " 

Eighteen  years  after,  he  wrote  these 
lines,  found  in  his  portfolio  after  his 
death  : — 

"THE  CROSS  OF  SNOW. 

"In  the  long,  sleepless  watches  of  the  night, 
A  gentle  form — the  face  of  one  long  dead — 
Looks  at  me  from  the  wall,  where  round  its 

head 
A  night-lamp  casts  a  halo  of  pale  light." 


194  The  Story  of  Some  Famous  Books. 

Here  in  this  room  she  died ;    and  soul  more 
white 

Never  through  martyrdom  of  fire  was  led 

To  its  repose  ;  nor  can  in  books  be  read 
The  legend  of  a  life  more  benedight. 

There  is  a  mountain  in  the  distant  west, 
That,  sun-defying,  in  its  deep  ravines 
Displays  a  cross  of  snow  upon  its  side. 

Such  is  the  cross  I  wear  upon  my  breast 
These  eighteen  years,  through  all  the  changing 

scenes 
And  seasons,  changeless  since  the  day  she  died." 

Longfellow's  first  printed  verses  ap- 
peared in  a  local  paper,  when  he  was 
thirteen.  The  young  poet  waited  till  his 
father  read  his  newspaper  by  the  log -fire, 
and  then  with  secret  triumph  found  that 
the  poem  was  actually  printed.  That 
evening  he  went  with  his  father  to  visit 
a  neighbour,  Judge  Mellen,  and  the  old 
Judge  happened  to  say,  "  Did  you  see 
the  piece  in  to-day's  paper?  Very 
stiff,  remarkably  stiff;  moreover,  it  is 
all  borrowed — every  word  of  it."  The 
poet  of  thirteen  felt  ready  to  sink 
through  the  floor;  but  he  got  away  as 
soon  as  he  could,  without  betraying  him- 
self. He  was  crushed  but  not  extinguished 


Longfellow.  195 

by  his  first  critic.  The  career  that  followed 
has  been  sketched  by  the  poet's  brother, 
with  extracts  from  letters  and  journals, 
enough  to  make  it  an  autobiography. 

"  We  find  the  sources  of  his  poetry  here,  and 
are  led  by  the  alchemist  himself  into  his  laboratory 
to  watch  the  secrets  of  making  the  gold." 

In  accordance  with  the  theory  of  inspir- 
ation, it  was  always  a  pleasure  when  a  new 
poem  formed  itself  rapidly  in  his  mind 
and  required  few  emendations.  Thus  the 
famous  "  Psalm  of  Life  "  was  hastily  jotted 
down  upon  the  blank  portions  of  a  note 
of  invitation  ;  and  with  reference  to  the 
"  Wreck  of  the  Hesperus  "  he  says  : — "  I 
feel  pleased  with  the  ballad.  It  hardly 
cost  me  an  effort.  It  did  not  come  into 
my  mind  by  lines,  but  by  stanzas."  It 
will  be  remembered  that  "  Tarn  o'Shanter," 
the  masterpiece  of  Burns,  was  also  dashed 
off  "at  a  heat." 

Among  the  poems  published  after  his 
death  is  a  touching  one  called  "The 
Children's  Crusade."  It  was,  unfortu- 
nately, left  unfinished.  It  is  founded  on 
an  event  which  occurred  in  1212.  An 


1 96  The  Story  of  Some  Famous  Books. 

army  of  twenty  thousand  children,  mostly 
boys,  under  the  lead  of  a  boy  of  ten  years, 
named  Nicolas,  set  out  from  Cologne  for 
the  Holy  Land.  When  they  reached 
Genoa,  only  seven  thousand  remained. 
There,  as  the  sea  did  not  divide  to  allow 
them  to  march  dry  shod  to  the  East,  they 
broke  up.  Some  got  as  far  as  Rome; 
two  ship  loads  sailed  from  Pisa  and  were 
not  heard  of  again;  the  rest  straggled 
back  to  Germany. 

Poetry  has  often  been  defined ;  here 
is  an  excellent  definition  : — 

"  Poetry,  under  her  own  peculiar  laws,  is  more 
than  any  other  pursuit  of  man,  perhaps,  the 
direct  reflection  of  the  spirit  of  the  age  as  it  passes. 
The  mirror  she  holds  up  is  not  so  much  to  nature 
at  large,  as  to  human  nature.  The  poet  is,  in- 
deed, the  child  of  his  century :  his  art  not  only 
gives  back  the  form  and  pressure  to  the  body 
of  the  time  ;  but  it  is  itself  the  impersonation  of 
its  most  advanced  thought,  the  efflorescence  of  its 
finest  spirit."1 

T/ie  Autocrat  of  the  Breakfast-table, 
the  most  popular  production  of  that 
popular  poet  and  essayist  Dr.  Oliver 

1   Quarterly  Review, 


Whittier.  197 

Wendell  Holmes,  as  far  as  can  be 
ascertained,  has  no  legendary  story  as 
to  its  origin.  That  this  very  original 
work  should  have  proved  such  a  great 
favourite  surprises  no  person  who  has 
perused  its  pleasant  and  brilliant  pages. 
It  has  been  conjectured  that  the  plan  of 
the  work  may  have  been  suggested 
either  by  the  Nodes  Ambrosiance,  or 
Boswell's  Life  of  Johnson  ;  but  it  is  safe 
and,  perhaps,  sufficient  to  say  that,  if 
modelled  after  either,  it  is  worthy  of  both. 
The  gems  that  are  scattered  among  its 
pages  are  evidence  enough  of  the  poetic 
skill  and  humour  of  its  author. 

As  the  keynote  to  much  of  Whittier's 
poetry,  we  might,  perhaps,  take  his  own 
quaint  and  picturesque  stanza : — 

"  I  love  the  old  melodious  lays  which  softly  melt 

the  ages  through, 

The  songs  of  Spenser's  golden  days,  Arcadia- 
Sidney's  silver  phrase, 

Sprinkling  o'er  the  noon  of  time  with  freshest 
morning  dew." 

Whittier's  style  has  been  characterised 
as  pure  strong  Saxon.  It  is  said,  that 
he  composes  many  of  his  beautiful 


198  The  Story  of  Some  Famous  Books. 

passages  while  walking,  and  afterwards 
commits  them  to  paper.  Most  of  his 
eloquent  anti-slavery  appeals  were  occa- 
sioned by  the  events  to  which  they 
sometimes  refer.  We  gather  a  little 
inkling  of  his  genial  and  kindly  nature 
in  the  last  verses  of  one  of  his  poems, 
entitled  "  The  Reward  "  :— 

' '  Alas  !  the  evil  which  we  fain  would  shun, 
We  do,  and  leave  the  wished-for  good  undone  ! 

Our  strength  to-day 

Is  but  to-morrow's  weakness,  prone  to  fall, — 
Poor,  blind,  unprofitable  servants  all 

Are  we  alway. 

"  Yet  who,  thus  looking  backward  o'er  his  years, 
Feels  not  his  eyelids  wet  with  grateful  tears, 

If  he  hath  been 

Permitted,  weak  and  sinful  as  he  was, 
To  cheer  and  aid,  in  some  ennobling  cause, 

His  fellow  men  ?  " 

We  have  reason  to  be  proud  of  this 
poet-philanthropist,  —  "  his  lyre  having 
been  struck  and  attuned  to  many  a 
stirring  note  for  freedom  and  human 
progress,"  as  well  as  to  the  high  interests 
of  virtue  and  religion. 

Latest,  but    not  least,  indeed,   in  the 


Lord  Tennyson.  199 

illustrious  order  of  the  sons  of  song  is 
the  representative  poet  of  England, 
Lord  Tennyson,  the  Poet-Laureate,  who 
has  been  justly  characterised  as  "  the 
incarnate  voice  of  cultivated  and  refined 
England,  in  his  time."  An  estimate 
endorsed  by  another  acknowledged 
authority,1  who  says : — 

"  No  one  else  has  the  same  combination  of 
melody,  beauty  of  description,  culture,  and  in- 
tellectual power.  He  has  sweetness  and  strength 
in  exquisite  combination.  If  a  just  balance  of 
poetic  powers  were  to  be  crown  of  a  poet,  then 
undoubtedly  Tennyson  must  be  proclaimed  the 
greatest  English  poet  of  our  time." 

It  would  be,  of  course,  superfluous  to 
call  attention  to  the  earlier  productions 
of  his  muse, — "  The  May  Queen,"  "  Locks- 
ley  Hall,"  "Maud,"  "The  Idylls  of  the 
King,"  "The  Princess,"  "The  Lady  of 
Shalott,"  and  others, — since  they  are 
familiar  to  all  lovers  of  true  poetry.  But 
it  may  be  well  to  cite  a  word  or  two 
from  Charles  Kingsley  respecting  his  fine 
philosophical  poem  in  memory  of  his 
friend  Hallam.  He  says  : — 
1  Justin  McCarthy. 


2OO  The  Story  of  Some  Famous  Books. 

"  We  know  not  whether  to  envy  more  the  poet, 
the  object  of  his  admiration,  or  the  monument 
which  he  has  consecrated  to  his  nobleness.  In  this 
poem,  written  at  various  intervals  during  a  series 
of  years,  all  the  poet's  peculiar  excellences,  with 
all  he  has  acquired  from  others,  seem  to  have 
been  fused  into  a  perfect  unity,  and  brought  to  bear 
on  the  subject,  with  that  care' and  finish  which 
only  a  labour  of  love  can  inspire." 

And  should  there  be  need  for  further 
tribute,  we  have  these  enthusiastic  words 
from  Mr.  Gladstone.  Referring  to  "  The 
Idylls  of  the  King,"  he  says  : — 

"  No  one  can  read  this  poem  without  feeling, 
when  it  ends,  what  may  be  termed  the  pangs  of 
vacancy — of  that  void  in  heart  and  mind  for  want 
of  its  continuance  of  which  we  are  conscious  when 
some  noble  strain  of  music  ceases,  when  some 
great  work  of  Raphael  passes  from  view,  when  we 
lose  sight  of  some  spot  connected  with  high  associa- 
tions, or  when  some  transcendent  character  upon 
the  page  of  history  disappears, — and  the  with- 
drawal of  it  is  like  the  withdrawal  of  the  vital  air." 

Should  we  not,  then,  cherish  with 
loving  regard  these  treasured  legacies 
of  the  lyre,  and  hold  in  high  esteem 
those  who  have  so  nobly  enriched  our 
literature,  and  imparted  to  our  too  prosaic 


Lord  Tennyson.  201 

life  such  a  revenue  of  intellectual  enjoy- 
ment? Finally,  if  a  nation's  glory  and 
renown  may  be  said  to  depend  in  great  part 
upon  its  authors  and  artists,  then  no  logic 
is  needed  to  enforce  their  claims  upon  its 
grateful  esteem  and  lasting  remembrance. 

"  The  pen  hath  ruled  with  regal  sway 

The  conquering  sword, — and  crowned  its  way  ! 
Like  Phoebus,  with  Promethean  fire, — 
Jove's  thunder  and  Apollo's  lyre, — 
Its  diamond  point,  like  stars  at  night, 
Hath  turned  earth's  shadows  into  light !  " 


INDEX. 


Anonymous  Works,  3. 

Arcadia,  by  Sidney,  28,  29. 

Arnold  (Matthew),  quoted,  156. 

Arthur  and  his  Knights  of  the  Round  Table,  56. 

Ascham  (Roger),  36 — 38. 

Atterbury  (Bishop),  69. 

Audubon  (J.  J.),  the  ornithologist,  141 — 144. 

Authors,  origin  of,  I. 

Autocrat  of  the  Breakfast  Table,  196. 

Ballads,  old  English,  53. 

Beckford's  Vathek,   124. 

Bible,  the  first  printed  book,  19. 

Blair's  Grave,  101,  134. 

Boccacio's  Decameron,  22. 

Bolingbroke  (Lord),  67,  69,  70. 

Bonnivard,  157. 

Boswell's  Life  of  Johnson,  95. 

Browne's  (Sir  Thomas)  Religio  Medici,  40 — 43. 

Browning  (Mrs.  E.  B.),  176 — 179. 

Bryant's  (W.  C.)  Thanatopsis,  100,  170. 

Bunyan  (John),  28,  36,  63—67. 

Burns  (Robert),  113 — 119. 


Index.  203 

Burrough's  Fresh  Fields,  quoted,  163. 
Butler  (Samuel),  49,  146—148. 
Byron  (Lord),  155—159. 

Camoens,  his  misfortunes,  16. 

Campbell    (Thomas),   quoted,   25,    31,   99,     161  ; 

origin  of  his  Hofienlinden,  99. 
Carlyle    (Thomas),    quoted,    118;     his    writings, 

162—168. 
Cervantes,  10. 

Chaucer's  Canterbury  Tales,  21 — 23. 
Coleridge  (Samuel  Taylor),  135— 141  ;  quoted,  16, 

49.  126. 

Cooper  (J.  Fenimore),  171. 
Cowley  (Abraham),  26. 
Cowper  (William),  108 — 112. 
Crabbe's  Poems,  151. 
Croft's  English  Literature,  quoted,  27. 
Culprit  Fay,  The,  169. 

Dana's  Culprit  Fay,  169. 

Defoe's  Robinson  Crusoe,  70 — 72. 

De  Quincey  (T.),  126,  138,  140. 

Descartes,  14. 

D' Israeli  (Isaac),  quoted,  14. 

Dryden  (John),  his  Ode  to  St.  Cecilia,  67. 

Elia,  Essays  of,  152. 
Emblems,  51. 

Emerson  (R.  W.),  quoted,  24. 
Enchiridion,  by  Quarles,  52. 
Evelyn's  Diary,  45 — 47. 


2O4  Index. 

Faerie  Queen  (Spenser's),  24. 
Farrar  (Canon),  quoted,  50,  112. 
Feltham's  Resolves,  48. 
Fielding's  novels,  123. 
Fisher  (E.  S.),  quoted,  45. 
Fox's  Book  of  Martyrs,  33 — 36. 
Franklin's  Autobiography,  149. 
Fraser1!  Magazine,  quoted,  164. 
Fuller  (Thomas),  49. 

Genlis  (Madame  de),  9. 

Gibbon,  objected  to  the  criticism  of  friends,  15; 

his  Decline  and  Fall,  119 — 121. 
Goethe,  quoted,  12. 
Goldsmith's  writings,  102 — 108,  146. 
Gray's  Elegy,  96,  97. 
Guileville  (Guillaume  de),  64. 
Gulliver's  Travels,  72,  73. 
Guthrie  (Dr.),  n. 

Halleck  (FitzGreene),  119,  170. 
Hawthorne's  (N.)  writings,  186 — 189. 
Hobbes  (Thomas),  of  Malmesbury,  59. 
Hohenlinden  (Campbell's),  99. 
Holmes  (Dr.  O.  W.),  196. 
Homer,  lo. 

Hood  (Thomas),  172 — 175;  quoted,  9. 
Hunt  (Leigh),  135. 

Irving  (Washington),  133,  134,  179—185. 
Jerrold  (Douglas),  3. 


Index.  205 

Johnson  (Dr.  Samuel),   10,  41,  69,  90  ;  his  Dic- 

tionary, 86  —  93. 
Juan  Fernandez,  71. 

Knickerbocker's  New  York,  181. 


Rookh,  1  60. 
Lamb  (Charles),  151  —  155. 
Lemon  (Mark),  175. 
Lockhart  (J.  G.),  129. 
Longfellow  (H.  W.),  189—196. 
Lowell  (J.  R.),  on  the  choice  of  books,  5. 

McCarthy  (Justin),  quoted,  198. 

Malebranche,  indebted  to  Descartes,  14. 

Mazarin  Bible,  19. 

Milton  (John),  78—84. 

Montaigne,  not  appreciated  in  his  own  province, 

15  ;  his  Essays,  38  —  40. 
Montgomery  (James),  134. 
Moore  (Thomas),  146,  159  —  161. 
More  (Sir  Thomas),  Utopia,  32,  33. 
Munchausen  (Baron),  63. 

Norris  of  Bemerton,  qtioied,  51. 
Norton  (C.  E).  quoted,  167. 

Otway  (Thomas),  10. 

Paradise  Lost,  78. 

Paul  and  Virginia,  60  —  63. 

Pepys's  Diary,  43,  44. 


206  Index. 

Percy's  (Bishop)  Religues,  53. 

Pilgrim's  Progress  (Banyan's),  28,  36,  63 — 67. 

Poe  (E.  A.),  168—169. 

Pope  (Alexander),    69,  70,   146 ;  his  opinion  of 

the  Faerie  Queen,  26. 
Prescott  (W.  H.),  170. 
Prince,  a  self-taught  poet,  12. 
Punch,  175. 

Quarles  (F.),  his  Emblems,  51. 
Quarterly  Review,  quoted,  196. 

A    • 

Raleigh  (Sir  W.),  24,  25,  27. 
Raven  (Poe's),  168. 
Religio  Medici  (Browne's),  40 — 43. 
Richardson's  (S.)  novels,  121,  122. 
Robin  Hood  ballads,  55. 
Robinson  Crusoe,  70 — 72. 
Rogers  (Samuel),  145. 

St.  Pierre's  (B.)  Paul  and  Virginia,  60 — 63. 

Schoolmaster  (Ascham's),  36. 

Scott  (Sir  Walter),  10,  128—133. 

Selkirk  (Alexander),  71. 

Swift's  Gulliver's  Travels,  72. 

Shakespeare  (W.),  18,  57. 

Shaw's  English  Literature,  quoted,  136. 

Shelley  (P.  B.),  158. 

Sidney  (Sir  Philip),  28—31. 

Sketch  Book  (Irving's),  183. 

Smith  (Horace),  quoted,  I. 


Index.  207 

Smollett's     Roderick     Random     and     Humphry 

Clinker,  123. 

Song  of  the  Shirt  (Hood's),  174. 
Southey  (Robert),  10,  148. 
Spenser  (Edmund),  23 — 28. 
Stedman's  Victorian  Poets,  quoted,  179. 
Sterne's      Tristram     Shandy    and      Sentimental 

Journey,  121. 

Stoddard  (R.  H.),  quoted,  152. 
S  tow's  Chronicle,  quoted,  55. 
Stowe  (Mrs.  H.  B.).  171. 

Tasso,  his  misfortunes,  16. 
Temple  Bar,  quoted,  155. 
Tennyson  (Lord),  198. 
Thomson's  Seasons.  15. 
Toxophilus  (Ascham's),  36. 
Tristram  Shandy,  121. 
Tuckerman  (H.  T.),  quoted,  6,  13. 

Uncle  Tom's  Cabin,  171. 

TJpcott,  his  discovery  of  Evelyn's  Diary,  46. 

Utopia  (More's),  32,  33. 

Vathek  (Beckford's),  124. 
Vicar  of  Wakefield,  102. 

Walton's  Angler,  73 — 75. 

Wandering  Jew,  59. 

Warwick's  (Arthur)  Spare  Minutes,  49. 

Waver  ley  Novels,  130. 

West  (Frederick),  quoted,  n. 


208  Index. 

Wheatley  (H.  B.),  53,  86. 
White's  Selborne,  75 — 77. 
White  (Rev.  Blanco),  quoted,  4. 
Whittier  (J.  G.),  quoted,  17,   197. 
Willmott  (Rev.  W.  A.),  quoted,  17. 
Wilson  (Alexander),  144. 
Wither's  Emblems,  51. 
Wordsworth  (William),  125 — 128. 

Young's  Night  Thoughts,  84—86. 


C6e 


's  Li&rarp, 


EDITED   BY 

HENRY  B.  WHEATLEY,  F.S.A. 

Tastefully  printed  on  antique  paper,  handsomely  bound  in 

cloth  ;  also  on  handmade  paper,  Roxburgh  binding,  and 

50  only  large  paper  copies  for  collectors, 


THE   DEDICATION  of 

BOOKS 
To  PATRON  and  FRIEND. 

By, HENRY  B.  WHEATLEY,  F.S.A. 

Being  the  Fifth  Volume  of  "The  Book-Lover's 
Library." 


Contents. 


EARLY   DEDICATIONS. 
SHAKESPEARIAN   DEDICA- 
TIONS. 

POLITICAL  AND  SATIRICAL 

DEDICATIONS. 
DRYDEN'S  DEDICATIONS. 


PLAYWRIGHTS  DEDICA- 
TIONS. 

EIGHTEENTH  CENTURY 
DEDICATIONS. 

DR.  JOHNSON'S  DEDICA- 
TIONS. 
MODERN  DEDICATIONS. 


"Throughout  Mr.  Wheatley  has  done  his  work 
thoroughly  and  in  a  most  judicious  way.  There  is  a 
good  index,  highly  necessary  to  such  a  book,  which  is 
certainly  worthy  of  a  place  in  every  good  library." 

Public  Opinion. 

14 


MODERN  METHODS 

of 
ILLUSTRATING  BOOKS. 

"  The  various  styles  of  illustration  and  the  transition 
from  the  one  to  the  other,  with  all  the  most  notable 
peculiarities  of  each,  from  the  old  woodcuts  down  to  the 
photogravure  of  yesterday,  are  set  forth  in  a  graphic 
amd  interesting  form." — Warrington  Guardian. 

© 


HOW  to  FORM  a  LIB R ART. 

By  H.  B.  WHEATLEY,  F.S.A. 

Being  the  First  Volume  of  "  The  Book-Lover's 
Library." 


Contents. 


HOW  MEN   HAVE   FORMED 
LIBRARIES. 


HOW  TO   BUY. 
PUBLIC   LIBRARIES. 


PRIVATE   LIBRARIES. 


GENERAL  BIBLIOGRAPHIES. 
SPECIAL  BIBLIOGRAPHIES. 
PUBLISHING  SOCIETIES. 
CHILD'S  LIBRARY. 
ONE  HUNDRED  BOOKS. 


"An  admirable  guide  to  the  best  bibliographies  and 
books  of  reference.  ...  It  is  altogether  a  volume  to 
be  desired." — Globe. 

"  Everything  about  this  book  is  satisfactory — paper, 
type,  margin,  size,  above  all,  the  contents." 

St.  James's  Gazette. 

"  Supplies  in  a  compact  form  much  that  the  librarian 
and  book-lover  could  not  obtain  elsewhere  without 
lengthy  research." — Oxford  Chronicle. 


THE  LITERATURE  of  LOCAL 
INSTITUTIONS. 

By  G.  LAURENCE  GOMME,  F.S.A. 

The  work  is  divided  into  the  following  sections  : — 


5.  THE  GUILDS. 

6.  THE   MANOR. 

7.  THE  TOWNSHIP  AND 

PARISH. 


1.  LOCAL   GOVERNMENT 

GENERALLY. 

2.  THE  SHIRE. 

3.  THE  HUNDRED. 

4.  THE  MUNICIPAL  BOROUGH 

"  A  handy  and  useful  guide  to  the  study  of  a  vast 
subject.  The  writer's  experience  in  bibliography  and 
index-making  is  fully  reflected  in  the  descriptive  list 
of  works  appended  to  each  section  of  an  excellent 
exposition  of  the  antiquity  and  growth  of  local  institu- 
tions." —  Saturday  Review. 


OLD  COOKERY  BOOKS  and 
ANCIENT  CUISINE. 

By  W.  C  HAZLITT. 

"This  is  a  book  of  pleasant  gossip  on  a  subject 
which  is  not  easily  exhausted,  and  can  hardly  fail  to  be 
interesting."  —  Spectator. 

"  It  will  be  found  very  pleasant  reading  alike  by  the 
bibliophilist,  the  scholarly  cook,  and  those  interested  in 
gastronomy."  —  Hotel  Review. 

"  Mr.  Hazlitt  has  produced  a  thoroughly  entertaining 
and  clever  little  book,  full  of  curious  facts  relating  to 
the  food  of  past  generations,  and  its  mode  of  prepara- 
tion for  the  table."  —  Bookseller. 

"  Full  of  curious  information,  this  work  can  fairly 
claim  to  be  a  philosophical  history  of  our  national 
cookery."—  Morning  Post. 


GLEANINGS  in  OLD  GARDEN 
LITERATURE. 

By  W.  C.  HAZLITT. 

In  this  new  volume  of  the  BOOK-LOVER'S 
LIBRARY  the  author  has  gleaned  in  many  out- 
of-the-way  fields,  and  has  brought  home  and 
spread  before  the  reader  a  banquet  well  gar- 
nished with  fruit  and  vegetable  lore,  rendered 
pleasant  by  the  fragrance  of  many  old-fashioned 
flowers.  The  illustrious  men  of  our  country 
who  have  delighted  in  a  country  life,  and  have 
spent  their  leisure  hours  in  the  pleasures  of  the 
garden,  sit  round  the  board,  while  some  of  the 
great  gardeners  enliven  their  patrons  with 
curious  narratives  of  their  craft  in  pleasant 
fashion. 


Contents. 


PRELIMINARIES. 

LITERARY  ANTIQUITIES. 

ELIZABETHAN    GARDEN- 
ING. 

THE   FRENCH  AND    DUTCH 
SCHOOLS. 

HERBALS,   PHYSIC-GARD- 
ENS,   AND   BEES. 

THE   KITCHEN-GARDEN. 

THE  ANCIENT  AND  MODERN 
ARBOURS. 


WINDOW-GARDENING. 
BACON   AS  A  GARDENER. 
HERBS  AND  VEGETABLES 
FRUIT  TREES. 

FRUIT  TREES  (continued). 

FLORA. 

MARKET  GARDENS   IN  THE 
SUBURBS  OF  LONDON. 

SIR  WILLIAM  TEMPLE. 

BIBLIOGRAPHY  OF  GAR- 
DENING LITERATURE. 


'  "A  volume  that  may  afford  delight  to  the  lover  of 
gardens,  even  if  he  be  not  a  lover  of  books  in  general." 

Morn  ing  Post. 


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